


Stay

by kamanzi



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: 1700s royal court au, Blood, F/F, Homophobia, Smoking, brief nudity, frequent alcohol use, occasional but still present
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 32,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24357997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamanzi/pseuds/kamanzi
Summary: "She was different, sure. But it was undeniably Catra. Adora would’ve recognized her anywhere, even if it had been seven more years—or twenty, or one hundred—before she saw her again. And she very much had the impression that Catra felt the same, if the haunted recognition on her face was any indication."---Curtsies, corsets, and conspiracies. An* alternate retelling of the several separations—and reunions—of Adora and Catra.*(occasionally canon-compliant)
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra), Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra), Mermista/Sea Hawk (She-Ra), Netossa/Spinnerella (She-Ra)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 73





	1. The Fright Zone

**Author's Note:**

> I finished both She-Ra and The Great within like a week of each other. This is the result: a 1700s royal court AU, in four parts.

At night, the empty halls were loud in their silence. Though routinely occupied throughout the day with the comings and goings of children and assorted staff members, which was plenty enough of noise for one to be getting on with, once the torches were extinguished the institution’s passageways filled not with hurried footsteps or raucous chatter but rather a rattling, bone-chilling nothingness. This was all sufficient in itself to frighten the wits out of the place’s residents, or at least out of its children, who shared a staunch refusal to even peek under the gaps between door and floor after dark. But the eeriness was not helped by the shadows of scraggly trees creeping through the windows across the stone, trees that, seemingly regardless of the time of year, simply declined to grow leaves or flowers or anything that wasn’t black. Nor was it helped by the moniker of the small province in which the institution was founded, which, despite having a perfectly official name that was written on maps and in correspondence for addressing purposes, had been deemed “the Fright Zone” for as long as it took for many of its inhabitants to straight-up forget that the official name existed at all. In short, the place was creepy. And cold, especially cold during this particular winter night.

It was for all of these reasons that Adora telepathed a wordless _thank you_ for what was likely the millionth time to whatever god might have been listening that she and Catra shared a bunk.

Catra’s ear flicked suddenly, nervously, tickling Adora’s hairline. But before Adora even had the chance to swat it away and say something indignant Catra was already shushing her.

“I didn’t even—”

“Shh!”

“But—”

“Shut _up_ , idiot!” Catra hissed, her ears both now ramrod straight and pointed towards the dormitory door. She sat upright, perfectly still for a moment, and then whispered, “Did you hear that?”

“I can’t hear anything over your annoying-ass hissing,” said the occupant in the next bunk above them.

“Can it, Lonnie!” Catra called up to her, still hushed.

Adora sat up, too, and looked towards the door. “I didn’t hear anything,” she muttered. “What? Is there something out there?”

“Yeah, go investigate it, A-dork-a.”

Adora’s insides froze at the very idea as Catra said, a little louder now, “I thought I told you to can it!”

“And I thought I told you to _pbbt_ ,” Lonnie responded, punctuating her statement with a raspberry.

Terror moderately assuaged, Adora lay back down with a giggle that she hid behind her hand. Catra, meanwhile, offered both Lonnie and the door their own sneers before she lay back down as well, turning to face Adora and pulling the sheet up to her chin. “I thought I heard, like, voices or something,” Catra said, whispering even more softly so that even Adora, whose face was inches from Catra’s own, had to strain to hear her.

“What?” Adora replied with a smug grin. “You going crazy, Catra?”

Catra’s brow furrowed farther over her eyes. “ _No!_ All of you are just deaf. You can’t hear anything.”

“I can hear you farting in your sleep.”

Catra’s eyes went wide, and her cheeks grew so red that they could be seen in the grey half-light from the small window across the room. She coughed out a laugh that she failed to suppress and pushed Adora’s exposed shoulder with both hands. “Shut up, I do not fart! _You_ fart! You fart so much you start floating!”

“You’re such a liar!” Adora laughed, and she tried to push Catra back, aiming to throw her to the floor, which would have totally worked if Catra hadn’t caught her wrists.

Through the struggle, Catra grunted, “Am not! First time I watched you do it I tried to send for an exorcist!”

“Oh, yeah? You once farted so hard you snuffed out every candle in this room!”

Catra laughed, full out, in the kind of laugh that always got kind of shrill and made Adora’s skin buzz with satisfaction. “You’re so—”

“Oh, my god, shut _up!_ ” came Lonnie’s voice, quickly pursued by a lumpy pillow that bounced off Catra’s temple onto Adora’s face. Before Catra could turn away and say something vicious, as she was often wont to do, Adora moved the pillow under her own head.

“You’re not getting it back!” Adora whisper-shouted, to which Lonnie had no reply on top of having no pillow.

Catra sniggered appreciatively and settled back in, fist once again curled in the sheet under her chin. “No wonder her mom got rid of her, she’s a nightmare.”

Adora felt her face shrink in on itself. “That’s mean, Catra. Don’t say that,” she admonished quietly.

“What? It’s true.” Catra responded, though she directed her whispers to Adora’s forehead, and Adora knew that was as good as an apology from her.

“You don’t know that,” Adora said. A chill crept across the room, and Adora fumbled awkwardly with the neck of her nightshirt, which was so spacious that it was never not falling off of her shoulder. Without a word, Catra pulled their shared blanket up to Adora’s ear. “Thank you. Anyway, I like her. She’s funny.”

Catra pouted, and continued to speak to Adora’s forehead. “No, she’s not. She’s stupid. And you’re stupid, too, if you don’t get that.”

Adora frowned. Then smiled. Then poked Catra on the forehead. “No stupider than you.”

Catra met her gaze and a smile of her own cracked through. “Yeah, right.”

“I heard,” Adora dropped her voice even lower, taking on a conspiratorial edge, “that Lonnie’s parents were the earl and countess from a country so far away that you have to sail for, like, a year to get there. And that they owned thousands of miles of orchards with weird yellow fruit shaped like macaroni.”

With a scoff, Catra said, “She wishes. But I’d believe that over where Kyle’s supposed to come from.”

Adora’s head cocked to the side. “Where’s Kyle supposed to be from?”

Rolling her eyes, Catra replied, “I heard he’s the son of some king near the edge of the Empire, but that his mom isn’t the queen and so they dumped him here so that the queen wouldn’t order him killed.”

Cocking her head even further to the side, Adora asked, “How can his dad be the king but his mom isn’t the queen?”

Catra chuckled, and her eyes drifted closed. “You’re such a baby. You don’t know anything.”

Adora hesitated for a second, then said, “Right. You don’t know how, either.”

Her eyes stayed closed, but Catra smirked. “Ask Octavia. I overheard her talking to some other older girls about it. I’m sure she’ll tell you everything.”

“Yeah, ‘overheard.’ More like, ‘listened in from under the breakfast table.’”

Catra lazily opened one of her eyes, the yellow one. “That’s how I get the good stuff. I’ll tell you more tomorrow. I’m sleeping now.”

Adora hummed. Before she could snuggle in properly, her forehead pressed gingerly to Catra’s, Catra had closed her eye again.

“Did hear somethin’, though,” Catra mumbled.

Adora hummed again, and—soon lulled by Catra’s breathing evening out—fell asleep herself.

\---

Adora and Catra were one of the first out of their dormitory the following morning, basically as soon as the light from the hallway windows bled under the door. They could move much more quickly than the other girls, first by being older than those who needed help lacing up their boots, and second by being younger than those who needed help lacing up their corsets. “Bye, Lonnie!” Catra singsonged unkindly over her shoulder, earning her a withering glare from the girl in question, whose hands gripped a bedpost while a roommate clumsily squeezed the air out of her, foot steadied against Lonnie’s rear to sew her tightly up.

They chased each other through the hall—still spooky in the light of day, but at least a manageable level of spooky, now that the corridors were waking up. Down the steps and towards the dining hall they ran past other students, not without the occasional bumping of shoulders or swears lobbed at them. Catra was in the lead for once, and was just about to skid around the corner to where breakfast awaited when Adora caught her by the tail and pulled back. Catra yelped and spun to swipe her claws at Adora, but Adora sidestepped her and succeeded in placing her foot within the dining hall first.

“That’s low, even for you,” Catra grumbled, but without much feeling, as she elbowed her way past Adora to walk towards their usual table in the farthest back corner.

Adora was about to inform Catra that, actually, it was fair in light of the fact that Catra had earned her lead by throwing Adora’s stockings into their seldom-used top bunk. But Adora had barely had the chance to complete an intake of breath before her front collided with Catra’s back. “Catra! What the heck?”

Catra turned to look at her, pointed at the table in front of them, and turned back. At the end of where her finger indicated, there were their usual seats, and their usual plates and flatware that would soon be filled with their usual gray porridge. But in one of those seats and toying absentmindedly with one of their forks was a boy, who seemed to be completely unaware of where he was.

“Who’s that?” Adora asked.

Catra shrugged. “I don’t know. I was gonna ask you. You’re the friendly one.”

Adora mirrored her shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before. Must be new.” That was strange in itself, because children who were placed in their institution were usually done before they were out of diapers. Adora had been there since she was an infant, she knew. Catra came later, but early enough that she couldn’t quite remember Catra’s first day. It was more like Catra had just suddenly popped into existence fully best-friended than like there had ever been a time that they didn’t know each other.

This boy, though, was older. Probably about Adora and Catra’s age, if not even a little bit older still. The other thing that was vastly different that Adora would’ve picked up on immediately, even if he hadn’t been sitting in a place he’d obviously never sat in before, was that he looked. . . Well. That is, he looked well cared for. His hair was cleanly done, distinctly parted at one side, and he had some fat and healthy coloring around his cheeks that suggested pampering. Most of the kids around them weren’t emaciated, or anything, but it was definitely a common trait there that they all had an air of neglect around them. Messy hair, missing shoe ties, dirty faces. Stuff like that. Not this boy, though.

Adora’s heart sank suddenly. Older kids only appeared if something really bad had happened to their families. Assuming this boy was not an exception, that certainly explained why his eyes looked like they might bubble over at any moment.

But Adora was pulled abruptly from her contemplation—as was the boy from his—when Catra snapped, “Hey. Wrong table, idiot.”

“Catra,” Adora scolded.

The boy, blinking furiously, dropped the fork with a clatter and shoved his hands in his lap. “Oh! Uh. Sorry! I—I didn’t know that these—that tables were—”

“Reserved,” Catra finished for him. “They’re not. This one is, though. So, beat it.”

“Catra!” Adora scolded again, and then sidestepped Catra to stand in front of her. “Sorry,” she said to the boy. “There’s enough chairs for all of us. Is it okay if we sit with you?”

The boy paused, nodded, and scooted his stool to make room for the one immediately next to him. Catra, with an eye roll to end all eye rolls, elected the seat that Adora usually took, which was caddy-corner to the boy. With what she hoped would come across as an appropriately apologetic smile, Adora opted for the seat directly across from him, forcing her to squeeze past Catra to take it.

It was in his best interests, really. Years ago, Kyle had bled for a week from the gash Catra left in him after Adora had sat next to him at breakfast.

(Catra wasn’t mean, though. Not really. She just really liked Adora, which suited Adora just fine, as she really liked Catra in return.)

They waited in awkward silence until one of the maids came by to slop porridge in their bowl with a stained, wooden spoon. Catra and Adora dug in at once, while the boy eyed it suspiciously.

“It’s better than it looks,” Adora said encouragingly, smiling wide enough at him to show off where a couple of her incisors were still missing.

Looking heartened, the boy dipped his spoon into the mix and brought it to his mouth. He chewed it quickly and thoughtfully, and then swallowed. “It’s not.”

Unable to help herself, Adora giggled. The boy looked moderately cheered by this as he scooped up some more porridge. “I’m Bow,” he said simply.

“Adora.”

“Your worst nightmare,” Catra supplied, staring daggers at him.

“Catra, stop it,” Adora snapped. Catra, slightly quelled, stared down into her own bowl. Adora gave the boy—Bow—another smile. “This is Catra.”

“Hello,” Bow said nervously.

They ate in somewhat companionable silence, and when Catra’s and Adora’s bowls were clean (Bow’s having undergone a good-faith effort, but still leaving behind about half), Catra put her elbows on the table and leveled Bow with a glare. “So, Arrow—”

“Bow,” Adora corrected.

“Doesn’t matter.” Catra dismissed her with a wave. “How old are you?”

“Eleven,” Bow answered.

“Us, too!” Adora said happily, grinning at Catra.

Catra ignored her. “Uh huh. Where are you from?”

“The, uh, Whispering Woods,” Bow answered again, smiling oddly with obvious nerves.

Catra hummed, and then asked, “Who are your parents. Or, who _were_ your parents?”

Bow’s smile dropped, his dark complexion going a little ashen. “Um,” he said, looking to Adora in what she assumed was a silent cry for help.

She had none to give, unfortunately. One, because Catra had a one-track mind and was rather hard to distract. Two, because—if she were being honest—she was rather curious herself.

After an extra moment of silence, Bow asked, “Is this like prison, where you’re not supposed to tell other prisoners anything personal about yourself?”

“Ah ha,” Catra said, reaching her finger forward to swipe some of Bow’s porridge and popping it into her mouth. “So you know about prison.”

Bow paled further, and Adora slapped Catra’s bicep. “Ignore her. She’s nosy.”

“She’s stupid,” Catra muttered, rubbing her arm.

\---

The day went on much like that. Adora couldn’t necessarily explain the shine she ended up taking to Bow, but she found him delightful. He was nervous, certainly, scared. That was only to be expected after he’d experienced whatever it was he had recently experienced. He still wasn’t giving up the metaphorical goat, so to speak, and maybe Catra might’ve thought Adora was dim, and maybe she actually was. But, still. Like aforementioned, older children didn’t appear in their institution without grim reason. Even Adora could connect those dots. That all being said, however, Bow’s personality shone through his nerves and fear. When Adora took him by the wrist to show him his classes or, once, the closest bathroom, he would quite nearly beam at her in gratitude. Beaming was rarely witnessed in the Fright Zone, even more rarely so in the school, so Adora was thoroughly charmed.

The same could not be said for Catra, who made herself scarce. After morning classes, she’d disappeared without a trace. While normally Adora would spend as long as she needed hunting Catra down (as disappearing without a trace was not an uncommon occurrence with Catra), she felt bad abandoning Bow on his first day, especially when he was so obviously out of his element. Every part of him, from his too-tailored waistcoat right down to his recently polished shoes, screamed “new guy.” And while in general the other kids with whom they lived and studied were not wholly “evil,” per se, they also weren’t the type to overlook obvious targets and leave them unblemished. With a wormy feeling in her gut, Adora kept to Bow’s side, always craning her neck over the patches of other kids to see if she could catch sight of Catra lurking around a corner.

Adora did not see Catra again until bedtime, and even then it was only the literal tail end of her slipping under the blankets of the top bunk as Adora entered the room. Adora only sighed, changed out of her boots and gown and into her gargantuan nightshirt, and crawled onto her mattress on the bottom bunk. She cupped her hand around the candle on the stool next to her bed and blew it out, glancing upward as she did so. Catra was not looking back down at her, she realized with a sinking heart. She couldn’t see Catra at all, even, just the edge of her pillow. With another, heavier sigh, she leaned back on her pillows and closed her eyes.

Sleep did not come, although to sleep’s defense Adora did not give it much opportunity. Unable to contain herself, as soon as the last girl had blown out the last candle, Adora stood firmly on her mattress, grabbed a hold of the bunk above her, and hoisted herself up.

“Adora!” Catra gasped as Adora’s forearms made contact with Catra’s gut. “Get off me!”

“For the love of—No!” Lonnie chastened them as she lifted her own head from her pillow, braids sticking to her cheek. From only a couple feet away, now, Adora spared a thought that Lonnie looked a lot more menacing up close, sticky braids aside. “No. I’m not doing this tonight. You guys have your little whisper fit down there. Not up here. No way.”

“Go to sleep, Adora!” Catra seethed, albeit mutedly.

“Okay,” Adora said, shifting up the length of the mattress to place her head next to Catra’s.

“Not up here!”

Lonnie echoed the sentiment with a groan. “I agree with Catra. For once.”

“Jeez, Lonnie, sorry,” Adora mumbled. She sat up on her elbow and said, “C’mon, Catra, let’s go.”

“No!” Catra spat, placing her crossed arms over her eyes. “You go. Just leave me alone.”

“Catra,” Adora whined. “What’s the matter? Why won’t you come to bed with me?”

“Other than the fact that it’s freaking weird?” Lonnie grumbled.

“Can it, Lonnie!” Catra snapped. Without another word she kicked off the blankets and dropped down to the floor below. Adora followed suit. Catra threw herself onto the bottom mattress, face down, head tucked under her arms. Before Adora could get settled in for herself, Catra whispered, “I’m only down here so Lonnie doesn’t rat us out tomorrow.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Adora said simply, flopping onto her side and boring holes into the side of Catra’s head with her eyes. “Now tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong, Adora. Go to sleep.”

“Is it because of Bow? Because I was being nice to him?”

Adora knew at once that she’d struck a chord in that Catra made it pretty obvious. Catra lifted her face, hissed wordlessly in Adora’s, and plopped it back down.

“Oh, Catra,” Adora sighed. She wiggled herself closer so that she could nudge her nose against Catra’s arm.

“Go hang out with your new best friend and leave me alone, would ya?”

“Catra, you’re being silly. You’re my best friend. You know that.”

Catra’s shoulders moved up and down in a shrug.

“You are,” Adora said, laying her head fully on Catra’s shoulder. She yawned and continued, “Forever and ever. I promise.”

Catra pushed herself up suddenly, leaving Adora’s head to fall to the mattress. Leaning on her elbows, Catra fixed Adora with a stern gaze. “You can’t promise that.”

Adora blinked at her. “What? Yes, I can.”

It was Catra’s turn to sigh dejectedly. “No, you can’t.” She turned onto her side, facing away from Adora.

“Catra. . .” Adora blinked at Catra again, or at least at the back of her wild, frizzy hair. Then, grateful that Catra could not see her, her face broke into what would’ve been a blinding grin. “You’re so dumb.” She wormed her arms around Catra’s middle and squeezed. “I’m always gonna be your friend. Just trust me.”

Catra’s previously stiff form slackened a little. After a quiet minute, she whispered, “Okay. Promise?”

“Promise,” Adora replied with an extra hug. “You promise, too?”

One of Catra’s hands brushed against Adora’s wrist. “Promise,” Catra said in return.

“Good. Now if you just be nice to Bow, we can all be friends together.”

Catra stiffened again, but Adora was too close to the brink of sleep to really feel it. It was forgotten the moment before she finally drifted off.

\---

At the end of the week, Adora was pulled from her dinner with Bow and a moody-but-present Catra by a request that didn’t not make her insides squirm.

“Shadow Weaver wants to see you, Adora,” Kyle had told her simply, wringing his hands in front of him and looking at everyone and everything but Catra.

Putting on a brave face, Adora said, “Oh, okay,” and stood. She squeezed Catra’s forearm as she did so, as Catra had essentially frozen in place. “It’s okay, stay here and look after Bow.”

“Do I need a babysitter?” Bow asked Adora’s parting back, but off she went. Despite the fact that she more than knew the way, Kyle led her as they wound through the dining hall and towards the main staircase.

“You know,” Adora told him kindly, “you really don’t have to come with me.”

“Oh, thank god,” Kyle groaned, his spine slumping forward. “She asked me to go with you to make sure you went alone.”

“You mean without Catra?”

Kyle nodded weakly.

Adora stifled a giggle. “Why on earth would she put you on Catra duty?”

“I—uh,” he gulped, “I dropped my candle on my bed sheets again last night. Burned a hole straight through to the mattress. She didn’t—she wasn’t very happy about that.”

“I see. Well, I’m okay! So you can—”

“Thank you!” Kyle said hurriedly before he disappeared around the corner that led to some of the boys’ dormitories.

Alone, Adora climbed the stone steps with loud clicks of her boot heels. Halfway up, she picked up her skirts with the tips of her fingers to bring them up her shin a few inches. She hadn’t needed to, really, as she still wore the ankle-length petticoats provided to the younger girls. But she suspected (or at least hoped) she would soon be joining the order of floor-length gowns and boned bodices. It was worth it to practice. Reaching the top step, Adora cast a quick wish to whatever powers that may be that Catra hit her growth spurt soon. Adora wouldn’t want to face entering adulthood alone. And who else would be willing to struggle with ensnaring Catra in a corset if not her?

“Drop your skirts, Adora,” a voice admonished from a dark corner. “That is inappropriate.”

Adora did as she was told at once and hopped into a fast, shallow curtsy. “Good evening,” she said in what she was training to be her deeper grown-up voice. It felt silly in her throat, like she was doing an impression.

Shadow Weaver approached, tall and imposing and hand toying with the bottom edge of her veil, and surveyed Adora prudently before she instructed, “Again, the curtsy. The deeper you curtsy, the more respect you demonstrate. Or do you not respect me?”

Immediately, Adora dipped her chin to her chest and bent her knees so low that her thighs quivered.

“That’s a good girl,” Shadow Weaver said, and then beckoned Adora to follow her with a crook of her finger.

When they were closed in her chambers, Shadow Weaver directed Adora to sit with a vague wave of her hand at a stool. Adora sat, as did Shadow Weaver in the larger chair on the other side of an ornate desk.

“You shouldn’t be displaying such intimate areas as your calves to whoever should be around to witness it, Adora,” Shadow Weaver started in, leveling Adora with a stern but not-unkind gaze. “You’ll be a proper young lady soon, you must remember some modesty.”

Adora nodded obediently. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“You’d do well to remind Catra, while you’re at it.”

Adora clamped her lips over the smile that quite nearly escaped. In their early morning race a day earlier, Catra had tripped Adora going down the steps, sending Adora tumbling across the hall until her petticoats became caught over her head. Adora swallowed the giddiness down, though, and said solemnly, “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, again.”

Apparently done with that subject, Shadow Weaver steepled her fingers. “Now, I understand that you’ve taken it upon yourself to befriend our new arrival.”

“Bow?” Adora clarified.

“Indeed. Bow.”

“Oh. Yes, I have,” Adora said. Then she blinked and resisted the urge to cock her head to the side. “Should I not have?”

“On the contrary,” Shadow Weaver said, dropping one of her hands to pull a parchment on the desk closer to her. “I admire your instincts. From what I understand, the boy comes from mostly impressive stock in the Whispering Woods. He has, to my knowledge, even secured some future position in the court of Bright Moon, once he becomes of age.”

“Oh,” Adora said simply, frowning. She’d heard of Bright Moon in whispered conversation between older children. “That’s the really fancy one, isn’t it?”

Shadow Weaver nodded once. “In a manner of speaking. It’s a powerful one, certainly.”

Huh. Adora had had no idea. Bow certainly didn’t act like a child with power promised to him. Those kids sucked—or, at least she heard they sucked. She’s pretty sure she’d never met one. But Bow didn’t suck, regardless.

“I thought Bow was from the Whispering Woods?” Adora asked.

Shadow Weaver hesitated, then nodded again. “He was. His father was a commander in the Whispering Woods armed forces, who are strongly allied with Bright Moon.”

“Is his father not anymore?” Adora asked, already knowing the answer.

“He is not. I will not answer any more questions about that, Adora.” Shadow Weaver leaned forward in her seat. “What I wanted to tell you is this: I believe it would be in your best interests to make a connection with this boy.”

Adora furrowed her brow. “Because he’s going to be powerful?”

“Because he could share that power with you, Adora.”

Adora gave in to the impulse to careen her head to one shoulder. “I don’t understand.”

“The boy will likely not be staying here for very long,” Shadow Weaver explained, absentmindedly flicking the edge of that parchment with her thumbnail. “Even if he does, he will leave the day he turns sixteen and join the Bright Moon court, as is expected of him. If you succeed in making this important connection, he might request to have you accompany him. If I had my way, you would do so as his betrothed.”

Despite her best effort, Adora barked out a laugh. She stifled it immediately, though, at Shadow Weaver’s suddenly cold gaze.

“I’m being quite serious, Adora. You have an opportunity here that is better than I could have hoped for you.” Her eyes, just visible over her veil, softened. “You could very possibly become a lady of the Bright Moon court, if you play your cards right. Wouldn’t you prefer that to becoming a servant to one of those ladies? Or, worse, to live the rest of your life as a common peasant of the Fright Zone, as so many of our students sadly become?”

Adora blinked, shook her head. “But marry Bow? What if I don’t love Bow?”

“You’ll grow to love him, even if you don’t at first,” Shadow Weaver replied.

“But what if—”

“Adora. Sometimes we must choose those paths that are unknown to us, or perhaps even unfavorable, to end up in a place that is in your best interests to be. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Adora hesitated before nodding, even if the nod wasn’t one-hundred percent genuine.

“Think about what I have told you here. But—” Shadow Weaver halted Adora in the act of standing. “—do not share this conversation with anyone. Least of all with the boy. Not even with Catra.”

“Catra?” Adora asked. “Why not Catra?”

Shadow Weaver sighed. “Catra, she. . . Distracts you. Confuses you.” She stood, and walked around the desk to cup her hand gently around Adora’s jaw. “I care for your future, Adora. I do not want anyone to get in its way. Especially those who would place their own emotions before the well-being of others.” Shadow Weaver withdrew her hand, walked to her door, and held it open. “You are excused. Good night.”

\---

Adora lay awake that night, staring at the slats of the bunk above her, trying to concentrate on Catra’s rhythmic breathing against her side, her hot breath against Adora’s bare shoulder. She managed for about an hour before she started bumping Catra’s chin.

“Catra,” Adora whispered. “Are you awake?”

“Mhm,” Catra mumbled, burying her nose further into Adora’s arm.

“What do you think of Bow?”

“Mhm.”

Adora sighed. “Do you think—Would you marry Bow?”

Catra stirred slightly then. “Would what?” she whispered.

Her chest tightened at the thought of meeting Catra’s eyes, which were beginning to open if the light flutter against her arm skin was any indication. Adora closed her eyes and asked again, “Would you marry Bow?”

A scoff. “Ew, no.” Then a pause. In a voice a bit higher than Catra’s regular register, she asked, “Would you?”

Adora didn’t answer immediately, and in her hesitation Catra came fully awake, sitting up and staring down at Adora (Adora was sure of it, she didn’t need to open her eyes to confirm it).

“Why are you talking about marrying Arrow boy?” Catra hissed. “Do you like him? Like, _like him_ like him?”

Adora’s eyes shot open, looking up into Catra’s narrowed ones. “No! I don’t like him. I mean—I like him as a friend and all. But. . .”

Catra’s eyes relaxed a little, but she curled up her legs and rested her head upon them, her tail twitching agitatedly and tickling Adora’s side. “Then why do you want to marry him?”

“I don’t want to marry him!” Adora whispered in a panic. “I don’t! It’s just—” She exhaled choppily. “Shadow Weaver said something. She told me not to tell you.”

“What’d she say?” Catra asked, her eyes slanting again.

Adora groaned wordlessly and rose to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with Catra. “She said that Bow is, like, gonna be a member of the Bright Moon court or something when he grows up. She said that, if I marry Bow one day, I could be, too.”

Catra stared at the bunks opposite them for a silent minute before saying, “Bright Moon’s dumb. But I guess it’d be cool if you got to be, like, a _princess._ ” Catra wiggled her fingers flamboyantly in the air. “Even if you’d be princess somewhere dumb.”

“I wouldn’t be a princess,” Adora said around a fond smile.

Catra shrugged. “But you’d have to be married to Bow?”

Adora’s smile fell. “I guess.”

They sat together without speaking for a few long moments. Then Catra mumbled, “I don’t want you to marry Bow.”

“You don’t?” Adora asked, whipping her head around to appraise Catra properly.

Whatever expression had been on Catra’s face dropped immediately, though, replaced by a sneer. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to be. Even if I did get to be a princess. And if it was me—” The sneer transformed into more of a soft frown. “I wouldn’t, like—I wouldn’t want to be there without you.”

Adora couldn’t help beaming at her. “I wouldn’t want to be without you, either.”

Catra scoffed at her again, and then slid down to curl onto her side, facing Adora. “Not because I like you, dummy. I just need someone to carry my stuff. And if Bow proposes to you I’m gonna kick him in the shins.”

Adora giggled and lay next to Catra, pressing their foreheads together. “Me, too.”

\---

The next day found Adora with Catra and Bow at lunch. It was, right up until the end, normal-ish.

The “normal” part of “normal-ish” derived from the fact that Catra was not acting much colder or crueler to Bow than she had been since his arrival, which came as a relief to Adora after the night before. If Catra had once nearly scalped Kyle for being unlucky enough to sit next to Adora, Adora couldn’t imagine what she would’ve done to Bow if the whole betrothal thing was a real threat. But the “ish” in “normal-ish” came from Catra watching Adora perhaps a bit more closely than she usually did, and Adora would’ve sworn she heard Catra grumble something when Bow reached across the table to pass Adora the serving spoon. Ultimately, if no scalps were scalped, Adora couldn’t complain too much.

“Do you want to go play outside after lunch?” Bow asked politely, looking mostly at Adora with a quick, sidelong glance at Catra. “I’m kind of tired of being stuck inside all day.”

“We’re not allowed,” Adora explained around her final mouthful of what was essentially brown slop.

“We’re not allowed to play?” Bow asked, his face falling dramatically. “Not even on the weekend?”

“No, we’re allowed to play.” Adora swallowed. “Kind of. But we’re not allowed to go outside.”

“What?” Bow’s face, though temporarily relieved at learning that play was not (yet) illegal in the Fright Zone, fell a bit further still. “Why not?”

Adora shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s supposed to be dangerous, isn’t it?”

Bow took a moment to consider his own lap before he brightened and looked back up at Adora excitedly. “What if we asked one of the staff to come with us? Or one of the older kids? Like, what if we could get someone to watch us? There’s gotta be _some_ exception!”

“Oh, certainly for you, my lord,” Catra mumbled totally not-quietly into her bowl.

“Wait, what?” Bow asked, right as Adora kicked her heel against one of Catra’s shins.

Bow’s question was never answered, however, for it was at that moment that a distant _bang_ echoed in the hallway. The dining hall, which usually buzzed with nonstop chatter, was silenced as quickly as if they were spelled to.

“Was that the front door?” Lonnie, at the next table over, asked Kyle and a large dragonborn boy, Rogelio. “No one comes through the front door. That’s for visitors only.”

Rogelio muttered something incomprehensible, as he typically did, but Adora knew him long enough to know what he was trying to say: _Who would visit_ them?

“ _Bow!_ ” came the shrill battle cry—if Lonnie’s prediction was correct, loud enough to reverberate through the halls, past the dining-hall door, and all the way to the back of the room where they sat. Most children looked around confusedly, but Adora and Catra swiveled in their seats simultaneously to gape wordlessly at Bow.

“Glimmer?” Bow said, his voice hitching and squeaking a bit on the first syllable.

Before Adora could begin to ask what a glimmer was, there was the growing sound of frantic, light footsteps from outside the hall, which stopped only when a small girl skidded around the threshold. She whipped her head around twice, scanning the room, before her eyes landed on the table in the far-back corner. When they did, she dropped her jaw and screamed again, “Bow!”

“Glimmer!” Bow yelled his reply, jumping from his seat in such a hurry that he tripped over the table legs. He caught himself and bolted, meeting the girl in the middle of the dining hall as she bolted towards him as well. They crashed together, shouting joyfully as they spun on the spot in their embrace.

“What the hell?” Catra muttered in Adora’s ear.

Adora shared the sentiment as she examined the girl in whose arms Bow was openly weeping. She was small, literally a head shorter than Bow, who himself had obviously not yet hit his growth spurt. Her puffy hair quite nearly matched her rose- and lavender-colored travelling cloak, which was falling open in her fervor to reveal a gown the likes of which Adora had certainly never beheld. Even from where she sat Adora could see the delicately embroidered silver stars on the girl’s silken petticoat, which shone so brightly in the light from the narrow windows just below the ceiling that Adora thought they might have been actual, real gemstones.

Every eye in the room was entranced by the sight, but hushed, conspiratorial chatter had broken out. Most questions were centered on “Who is that?” and “Where did she come from?” Catra, meanwhile, dug her elbow into Adora’s ribs and snickered, “Looks like you lost your cash cow, Adora.”

“Shut up,” Adora scolded, slapping her arm away (not that it did much to quash Catra’s amusement, as she continued grinning widely at the pair in the center of the room). “Do you have any idea who that is?”

“No,” Catra huffed. “Why should I?”

Unannounced, several new figures stepped into the room at once. Two were recognizable: Shadow Weaver and—

Catra’s hand was clawing at Adora’s bicep in a second. “Holy—”

“I know,” Adora muttered as she gawked at the man in the billowing red cape who walked astride Shadow Weaver.

Furious whispers erupted all around, for Hordak, Lord of the Fright Zone, was among them.

“What’s he doing here?” Catra asked. “It’s not Founder’s Day.”

“Silence!” Shadow Weaver shouted at the assembly, extending her hand out towards the tables. Again, a hush fell as if it had been conjured by magic (which, this time, it most likely was).

Only then did the third adult make herself known as she gracefully stepped around Lord Hordak and Shadow Weaver. She was statuesque, her long, full gown and periwinkle travelling cape trailing behind her as she strode into the room, past tables, and towards Bow. Her translucent wings, which had been slightly extended at first sight, folded together behind her back as she walked.

Over the girl’s shoulder, Bow noticed the woman and cried out, “Angella!”

The woman bent to pull both children into her arms while a murmur a few feet away escaped the vacuum of absolute silence. “Angella?” Kyle said. “Is that Queen Angella of Bright Moon?”

Kyle’s question was carried across the room in a wave, reaching a great crescendo just as Shadow Weaver again waved her hand through the air, rendering them all mute.

“Come now,” Queen Angella spoke softly into Bow’s hair. “We’re going to sort this all out, and then we’re going home. Let’s go, darlings.” She extricated herself from Bow and the girl but kept ahold of their hands and gently led them out of the dining room. Shadow Weaver and Lord Hordak followed them, but just before they could block Bow completely from view, he caught Adora’s eye and gave her a watery smile.

The very moment the tips of Shadow Weaver’s gown disappeared around the corner, there was an explosion of noise like a bomb had gone off. Adora ignored it, though, clutched Catra’s hand, and pulled her through the crowd, bobbing and weaving like her life depended on it.

“Adora!” Catra screeched, ducking last minute to avoid colliding with somebody’s outstretched arms. “What are you doing?”

“I’m finding out what’s going on! Now come on!” They spun around the corner and Adora led them towards the stairs. At the bottom, Adora slowed, and Catra followed suit. “I bet you anything they went up to Shadow Weaver’s office. But they’re probably not too far ahead, so let’s be sneaky now.”

“Adora,” Catra moaned as she climbed the steps dutifully behind Adora, “What do you care? He’s just a stupid boy.”

“It’s not that!” Adora replied, giving Catra’s hand a squeeze before letting go to pick up her skirts. “I just wanna know! Don’t you?”

“No.”

Adora rolled her eyes and, at the top of the steps, said, “Whatever, you can go back to our room if you’re that scared.”

“I’m not scared!” Catra snapped, her small fists on her hips, tail twitching.

“Sure you’re not.”

“I’m not!” Catra rushed past Adora, shoving her with her shoulder. “I’ll beat you there!”

Adora ran in Catra’s wake, laughing at her back. “Hold on, wait up! Catra, be quiet, they’ll hear us!”

Catra giggled. “They’ll hear _you_ , idiot, with all your stomping.”

They turned the corner together, Catra sliding into a halt and Adora stumbling behind her. On tiptoe, they crept a little further down until they came to rest outside of a closed door. Catra pressed her finger to her lips and her ear to the wood, crouching on her hands and knees to situate herself closest to the gap. Adora did the same.

“—not understand why this child was even sent here to begin with.”

“Your Highness,” Shadow Weaver’s voice dripped with barely concealed venom, “this institution provides safe haven for children like the boy. Various nobility’s bastard, orphaned, abandoned—”

“Of which he is none.”

A deep male voice replied, “With all due respect, the boy’s father was caught red-handed, witnessed to be engaged in. . . shall we say, a less than respectable position.”

“Witnessed by an unidentified person,” Queen Angella muttered, “whose testimony is therefore unreliable.”

“Regardless,” Lord Hordak continued, “the boy’s father is imprisoned, and his mother has long since passed. As the Whispering Woods was recently acquired by the Horde Empire, it is well within our Emperor’s jurisdiction to place the boy here so that he would be spared further abuse or neglect. Surely, no one would wish that on him.”

“Abuse?” came a girl’s soft voice.

“Hush, my love,” Queen Angella said. In a sharper tone, she added, “That may be true in the case that Bow was without guardianship, but the fact of the matter is that he is not. He is a member of the Bright Moon court by my edict and, as Bright Moon is _not_ a part of his Holiness's brilliant Empire—” Her voice, perhaps, a little strained. “—it is under my authority that he is commanded to return home with me as my ward.”

There was a long pause, during which time Adora and Catra exchanged wide-eyed glances.

Finally, Lord Hordak replied, “Of course. Our prudent Emperor would have no intention of frustrating our friendly relations with Bright Moon.”

“Nor would I,” Queen Angella stated.

“Indeed. The boy will go with you.”

Shadow Weaver hummed her approval. “We shall make arrangements at once for his return to your care.” She hesitated, then added, “However, your Highness, you have travelled a long way. It would be a great honor to our institution if you would spend the night in our guest quarters. They are perhaps not quite up to royal standards, I am embarrassed to admit. But they are clean and comfortable and can provide you and the Princess sufficient room to unwind until you can resume your travel in the morning.”

It sounded as if someone yawned, and Queen Angella chuckled. “It does seem as if my daughter could use a night spent in an actual bed. I suppose an extra day wouldn’t hurt. Bow will join us.”

“Of course,” Shadow Weaver responded. “I will inform the staff to have dinner sent to your rooms.”

There was no warning before the door was pulled open. Adora stepped back in alarm, but Catra, who had been leaning quite heavily against it, fell face-forward into the office.

“ _Catra,_ ” Shadow Weaver seethed as Catra quickly picked herself back up. Shadow Weaver’s eyes then fell on Adora, who was a few feet back and staring sheepishly at her own boots. “Adora! What—” Using one hand to propel Catra backward and another to grasp the door handle, Shadow Weaver said, “My Lord, your Highness, please excuse me for a moment.”

Adora barely had time to watch the Queen look over her shoulder at her before the door shut with a click, leaving her, Catra, and Shadow Weaver alone in the hall. Just as quickly, Catra turned on her heel and made to run back down the hall from whence they’d come, but mid-stride she froze, and her eyes widened in terror.

“Catra, you stay,” Shadow Weaver spat, hand outstretched. With one finger, she forced Catra to spin and stand straight, hands at her sides as if ropes bounded her. “What do you think you’re doing here?” Shadow Weaver whispered, danger trickling in every syllable.

“We were just playing,” Catra lied immediately.

“Insolent child.” Shadow Weaver moved so as to loom over Catra. “I’ve come to expect such disgraceful behavior from you. But—” Shadow Weaver bent forward, eyes leveled with Catra’s. “—I will not allow you to drag Adora down as well.”

“Shadow Weaver!” Adora interrupted, stepping forward to stand next to the statue that was Catra. “It wasn’t her fault, it was my idea, too!”

“You,” Shadow Weaver continued, without any acknowledgement that Adora was even there, “have never been anything more than a nuisance to me.” A dark energy seemed to spike around Shadow Weaver’s form, her gown and veil undulating in an unseen wind. “I’ve kept you around this long because Adora was fond of you. But if you _ever_ do anything to jeopardize her future, I will dispose of you myself. Do you understand?”

Catra’s eyes quivered seemingly uncontrollably, and Adora shot between her and Shadow Weaver, stretching her arms out as a shield.

“Please, stop!” Adora begged.

The moment Adora had stepped in front of her, though, Shadow Weaver’s demeanor shifted dramatically. The dark energy receded, and Shadow Weaver rose to her full height. She groaned and stepped away.

With a desperate look at Catra, Adora followed. “She didn’t mean to,” she said.

“Adora,” Shadow Weaver chided maternally, “you must do a better job of keeping her under control.”

Whatever had locked Catra in her position was released, and Catra fell to her knees.

Shadow Weaver reached to brush a hair off Adora’s face, tucking it gingerly behind her ear. “Do not let something like this happen again,” she finished with a light pat on the crown of Adora’s head.

The door reopened, and Catra ran away before anyone could stop her. Adora made to follow behind, until a kind voice stopped her.

“Adora?” Queen Angella asked. “Did I hear that your name is Adora?”

Catra’s tail disappeared around the corner, and Adora turned slowly to appraise the Queen. Belatedly, she dropped into a deep curtsy.

“That’s quite all right, dear,” Queen Angella said as she walked closer and crouched to Adora’s height. “Adora, then, am I correct?”

“Yeah,” Adora said, rising and blinking furiously at the beautiful, serene face of the Queen. “I mean—Yes! Your Highness!”

The Queen smiled indulgently. “By any chance, was your mother called Mara?”

Adora frowned. “My mother?”

“We do not know who Adora’s parents were,” Shadow Weaver interrupted. “Adora was found as an infant, alone in an abandoned battlefield within the Horde’s territory.”

Queen Angella gazed up at Shadow Weaver. “How did she come to be named Adora?”

Shadow Weaver hesitated, but Lord Hordak came into the hall then. “Monogrammed gown,” he explained. “I found her myself, and I brought her here.”

Something in Adora’s brain seemed to pop and fizzle. That was news to her.

Queen Angella stood, leveling Lord Hordak with a shrewd look. “Are you aware of the late Duchess Mara of Castle Grayskull?”

Lord Hordak nodded, but didn’t say anything. Shadow Weaver did nothing at all.

“She was a lady of my court,” Queen Angella explained, unprompted. “She was a highly skilled warrior, but was killed nearly a decade ago.”

“What a terrible tragedy,” Shadow Weaver stated without much feeling to it.

“It was.” Queen Angella surveyed Adora again. “She left behind a daughter, though, who was only a babe at the time. We never found her. Assumed, after some time, that she’d also been killed.” Queen Angella cocked her chin, then said, “The child’s name was Adora, as well.”

“ _What?_ ” Bow shouted from where his head was peaking around the door to Shadow Weaver’s chamber.

“Shut up!” scolded the girl, the Princess of Bright Moon, from her own place creeping behind him.

After glancing nervously at her daughter, Queen Angella crouched again to speak to Adora. “Young lady, do you know where the guest chambers are?”

Adora, struck dumb, nodded mutely.

“Would you please escort Bow and Glimmer to them? You all can play for a little while.”

Adora looked to Shadow Weaver, who hesitated, then nodded.

“Okay,” Adora said. She held her hand out to Bow, who grabbed it and held out his free hand to the Princess Glimmer, who did the same.

“I’ll meet you there shortly,” Queen Angella said. She rose and, as she stepped back into Shadow Weaver’s office, shot a weird look at Shadow Weaver and Lord Hordak in turn. “I would like for the adults to talk alone for a bit longer.”

\---

The guest chambers were palatial in comparison to the dormitory in which Adora slept. Three separate rooms, each with their own bed and dressing table, joined together by a relaxing room at their center. This is where Lord Hordak and his assorted guard stayed the one time a year he visited the institution to be honored as its founder. The drapes and carpet were dark and smelled perhaps a bit stale but, just as Shadow Weaver promised, clean.

Adora was grateful for this, as she was lying supine staring at the glass chandelier above her. Her hands toyed absentmindedly with the curtain tassel that brushed the ground, as Bow loomed above her from over the back of the couch.

“You’re a duchess?” he asked excitedly, beaming. “You didn’t tell me you were a duchess!”

Adora blinked, and frowned. “I didn’t know.”

The girl—Princess Glimmer, apparently—popped into view next to Bow. “You don’t look like a duchess,” she said, her voice laced with skepticism.

“Well, that’s not her fault,” Bow said. “Don’t be mean.”

“I’m not being mean, I’m just being honest,” Glimmer sighed dismissively before vanishing behind the couch.

Bow half-cringed, half-smiled. “Sorry about her. She’s usually really nice.”

“Not to Horde scum.”

“Glimmer!”

Adora sat up and, in doing so, could glare into the back of Glimmer stupid, pink, sparkly head. “What do you mean by _that_?”

“Nothing! She meant nothing!”

Glimmer wheeled around to meet Adora’s eye. “I meant that people from the Horde Empire are all terrible, and that probably includes you.”

“And what’s your problem with the Horde?”

Laughing humorlessly, Glimmer volleyed back, “ _My_ problem? You mean _everyone’s_ problem! I heard my mom and dad and aunt talking about it. The Horde is taking places and people that don’t belong to them. Last week, they took the Whispering Woods, Bow’s dads, and then Bow!”

Adora gaped at her. “They did what?”

“Glimmer,” Bow moaned. “They don’t teach that stuff here. Most of these kids have lived in the Horde their whole lives. They don’t know any better.”

Face suddenly hot, Adora clambered to her feet, nearly tripping and kicking her skirts out of the way. “I know plenty!” she hollered when she was finally upright. After a couple deep breaths, however, she cocked her head to the side. “Wait. Did you say dads? Like, more than one dad?”

Glimmer blanched. “No. . .”

But Bow looked at Adora thoughtfully for a moment, then asked, “Can you keep a secret?”

Adora said, “Yes,” at the same time that Glimmer said, “Of course she can’t!”

Bow rolled his eyes at Glimmer, and then said, “I have two dads. My dad George had me with my mom. My mom died, and then George married my other dad Lance.”

“Two dads can’t marry each other,” Adora said simply, fighting back a smirk. She was sure she was being teased. Being lifelong friends with Catra taught her that, more often than not, she was being teased. This seemed like one of those times.

Glimmer visibly deflated, however. “Told you not to tell her,” Glimmer mumbled, sliding back down onto the couch cushions with her arms crossed. “She’s gonna get you in trouble.”

“No, she’s not, Glimmer. Adora has been nothing but super nice to me since I got here.”

“I’m not gonna tell anyone,” Adora stated, worrying her lip between her teeth. “I’m just confused. How can two dads get married?”

“Well, they didn’t technically get married the way that my dad George and mom got married. It’s not exactly. . . allowed.”

Adora’s eyes could have popped out of her head. “What? So, they broke the law? Is _that_ why your dad was imprisoned?” But Adora watched Bow flinch, and immediately her hands flew up to flap uselessly in front of her. “Oh, I’m sorry! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay,” Bow said with a rather sad smile. “When the Whispering Woods was its own territory, nobody cared. My dads have been together as long as I remember. But a few weeks ago, the Horde took over. After that. . .”

“I see,” Adora said. Slowly, she walked around the couch on which Bow and Glimmer sat to settle across from them in a paunchy armchair, feet tucked beneath her skirts. “That’s so. . . sad. And. . . weird? Because, like, why would the Horde care?”

“Because the Horde is terrible and hates love and family and everything that makes people happy,” Glimmer muttered rapidly.

Adora narrowed her eyes at Glimmer. “Hey, I didn’t exactly hear your mom sticking up for Bow’s dads back in Shadow Weaver’s office, either.”

“Because my mom is covering for them!” Glimmer spat. Then she leaned forward to stick her finger so close to Adora’s face that she had to cross her eyes to focus on it. “And you better not rat on them either! Or else—”

Adora smacked Glimmer’s hand away. “I’m not gonna!”

“That’s enough!” Bow snapped, pulling Glimmer back. “Glimmer, none of this is Adora’s fault. So, just—just lay off her, okay?”

Glimmer didn’t respond, but she did pout and cross her arms back together, so Adora took that as a demonstration of compliance.

The parlor doors swung open then, and Adora automatically scrambled to place her feet on the ground and her hands in her lap. Queen Angella appeared, gently closing the door to the hall behind her before striding towards the sitting area. She went around the back of the couch to drop her travelling cloak between Glimmer and Bow and to place a kiss on each of their heads, lingering a tender hand on Bow’s cheek. “I’m so glad to have found you, my dear. Have you been treated well?”

“Yeah,” Bow sighed, briefly leaning into the Queen’s palm before pulling away. “I’m okay. Adora helped.”

When Queen Angella turned her kind eyes onto Adora, Adora quickly stood, curtsied, and said, “I’ll—I’ll get out of your way.”

“Hold on a minute, please, Adora,” Queen Angella said with a raised palm. “Would you mind speaking with me for a moment? Alone?”

“Oh! Uh—okay.” Adora grinned awkwardly. Queen Angella stepped towards her and placed a light hand on her shoulder, shepherding her to a bedroom behind the armchair. “Bow, Glimmer, you stay here, all right?”

They murmured their assent, and Adora allowed herself to be led all the way to the Queen’s bed in the next room. “Please, sit,” Queen Angella directed, and Adora perched herself on the very edge of the bed as the Queen shut the door behind her. With a few steps, the Queen came to sit beside her, looking down with a soft smile. “Adora, I want to start by thanking you for looking out for Bow. I’m sure that was a great comfort to him during his time here.”

Adora nodded dumbly. “Yeah, sure, of course. Or—I mean, yes, your Highness.”

Queen Angella waved a dismissive hand. “There’s no need for that in here, I assure you.”

Adora continued nodding dumbly and said, “Okay.”

There was a long pause while Queen Angella examined Adora’s face. Adora’s cheeks were just beginning to grow hot under the attention when the Queen nodded once. “Yes, I see it. You do look like Mara. Fairer features, but the shape of them. . . There can be no mistake.”

“Is that. . . Is that my mom, then?” Adora asked, ignoring the tremor that had suddenly seized her shoulders.

“It is,” the Queen confirmed. “I’m certain of it.”

“Did you know her?”

“I did. Quite well, in fact. She was a very, very dear friend of mine.”

“Oh. Wow.” Adora dropped her gaze to her lap.

“I know that this is a lot of information to take in,” Queen Angella said, “but I have something important we need to discuss. Do you think you’re ready for that?”

Adora paused, then raised her chin to look at the Queen squarely, nodding fiercely.

The Queen smiled. “All right, then. Mara, in addition to being my friend, was a member of my royal court. A duchess, to be specific. When she passed away, you inherited that title. Do you understand what that means?”

Adora bit her lip. “I think so. Does that mean that I’m a duchess now?”

“It does. You have been for quite some time, actually. What I mean, though, is whether you know what this means for your future.”

“Oh,” Adora sighed, eyebrows knitting together. “I’m not sure then.”

“That’s quite all right, dear, I’m happy to explain it. In short, as Duchess of Grayskull, you inherit Mara’s estate in Bright Moon. You also inherit her place in court. What that means is that—that is, if you would permit it, I would very much like to bring you to Bright Moon with us.”

Adora blinked. “For how long? Forever?”

Queen Angella nodded. “As long as you’d like to be there.”

“And I don’t have to marry Bow?”

At this, Queen Angella’s brow furrowed. “No. Why would you have to marry Bow?”

“Shadow Weaver said—”

Queen Angella raised her hand slightly, and Adora stopped talking. “I see. I am not surprised that Shadow Weaver thought of that, once she learned who Bow was. She’s. . . Clever, in that way, I suppose,” she said, punctuating her statement with a long blink, her iridescent wings shivering a bit agitatedly. “But no, you would not have to marry Bow or anyone else to claim your title.”

Adora’s shoulders sagged a little in relief. “Okay. Good.”

“So, what do you think? Would you like to come with us back to Bright Moon?”

Adora opened her mouth to reply, but she closed it again when, suddenly, she thought of Catra.

“Can I. . . have some time to think about it?” Adora explained, looking beyond the Queen’s shoulder.

“Absolutely. This is a big decision. Do you think you might know by tomorrow?”

Adora thought about it, then nodded.

“Take the evening, then,” Queen Angella said, reaching forward to clasp Adora’s small hands between her own. “But I would like to say, Adora, that it would bring me great happiness to bring you home.”

\---

Adora spent the rest of the afternoon looking for Catra. First in their dormitory, then in various broom closets, rafters, the basement, the window that overlooked the dried front lawn, classrooms, and finally—when the time came for dinner—the dining hall. Catra was nowhere to be seen, and it was with an empty stomach and mounting anxiety that Adora went to the last place she could possibly check.

Shadow Weaver opened the door nearly as soon as Adora had rapped on it. “Ah, Adora,” Shadow Weaver said slowly, full of uncharacteristic saccharin that set Adora’s nerves on edge. “Please, come in. Have a seat, and tell me about your chat with the Queen. Would you like some tea?”

“Tea?” Adora asked just as the bitter, humid smell hit her nose. “Okay.”

“Manners, Adora,” Shadow Weaver chided with an indulgent chuckle.

“Sorry, ma’am. I meant, yes, please.”

As Adora sat, Shadow Weaver slid a small china cup across the desk to her. “Little finger out, remember?” Shadow Weaver said.

Adora nodded and, holding her pinky aloft, took a small sip of her tea. It seared her tongue. She put her cup down in front of her and asked, “Shadow Weaver, have you seen Catra?”

“I believe I asked you a question first,” Shadow Weaver said, stirring her own cup with a twirl of her fingers inches above it. “I would like you to tell me about what you and the Queen discussed.”

Adora concealed a tiny huff. “She invited me to go to Bright Moon with her, to live there.”

Shadow Weaver nodded sagely. “Of course, she mentioned the same to me. And?”

“And?” Adora said with a cock of her head.

“Are you going to accept her generous offer?”

“I don’t know,” Adora said honestly. “That’s why I wanted to find Catra, I have to talk to her. Do you have any idea where—”

“I spoke with Catra some time after the Queen left to go to her chambers,” Shadow Weaver interrupted. “And it is my advice that you do not bother with Catra’s opinion on the matter. I warned you, Adora, that Catra does not act with your best interests at heart.”

Adora’s heart sunk deep into her chest. “What did you say to her?”

“I said nothing of importance. She sought me out, and inquired whether it was true that we’d discovered your royal lineage and that you would be invited to join the Queen in her court.”

Adora’s heart fell further, descending from her chest to her stomach. “How did she—? What did she—?”

“Adora,” Shadow Weaver said seriously and moved her cup away so that she could place her hands on her desk. “Catra asked me to convince the Queen to take her instead.”

If Adora’s heart could have fallen out of her entirely, it would have done. “What? Why?”

“Catra thinks only of herself. She thinks herself a better fit for court life than you—wrongly, I assure you. The fit that she threw when I informed her that I would do no such thing! It was an appalling sight.”

Adora’s bottom lip wobbled, but she reigned it in with her teeth. “Catra wouldn’t do that,” she muttered.

“But she did,” Shadow Weaver said with finality. After a second, she sighed, and reached across the desk. “Give me your hand, Adora.”

Adora did, albeit trepidatiously, and Shadow Weaver enveloped Adora’s fist in her long fingers.

“I understand that this is hard for you to believe. You. . . care for Catra. Very much.”

“She cares for me, too,” Adora directed at her knees with a sniff.

“I’m sure she does,” Shadow Weaver acknowledged. “But not more than she cares for herself.”

“That’s not true,” Adora said, blinking back the sting behind her eyes.

Shadow Weaver’s grip tightened, and Adora looked up. “Do not,” Shadow Weaver said, her eyes lit like fire above her veil, “allow Catra to get in the way of your future, Adora. Your happiness. Not when she would so easily dispose of it for her own gain.”

As quickly as if she’d been suddenly burned, Adora pulled her hand away. She stayed where she sat, though, staring at the grain of Shadow Weaver’s desk, which began to swim in her watery vision. “I need to talk to her,” Adora mumbled.

Shadow Weaver withdrew her own hands. “And you certainly may when you return to your room. But, tomorrow, you must leave with the Queen. Because that is what is best for you—no matter Catra might say. Do you understand?”

Adora blinked and, unbidden, hot tears tumbled down her cheeks. She wiped them away. And then she nodded.

\---

Catra was not in their dormitory at Adora’s return. In fact, she did not appear at all that night.

In the dark, Adora grabbed her pillow and pressed it over her face, choking back a sob so as to not wake up Lonnie or anybody else.

To keep Catra wandering through the desolate, haunted halls after sunset, what Shadow Weaver said must be true. Catra was angry, or jealous, or both. Catra wanted to go to Bright Moon instead of Adora. Everything Adora ever thought about Catra was wrong. Even just the night before, when Catra had looked so sad and told Adora that she would not want to go anywhere Adora wasn’t—that was a lie.

These thoughts flurried in her mind like hornets, buzzing so loud and so painfully. Adora’s chin quivered pitifully, and she bit the pillow to keep from crying aloud.

Shadow Weaver was right. Catra hated her.

There was, after all, no other explanation.

\---

Adora rose in time with the sun, which was easy enough to do as she had barely even closed her eyes, let alone been able to sleep. While the other girls in the dormitory snored on, Adora slipped quietly out of her blankets and crouched on her hands and knees to pull each of her possessions out from under her bed.

They were few. Two dresses, one of which had been crumbled and tossed down there in a fury the night before. Her boots. A few pairs of stockings. A single gold, wing-shaped pin that she kept carefully folded in a handkerchief, and the origins of which she didn’t know. Just as Catra had, the pin had merely popped into Adora’s life, present in her very furthest-back memories.

It hurt to think of Catra, though, so Adora gave her head a little shake and simply decided not to.

Adora lifted her nightdress over her head and, standing there in her shift, folded it with precision. She frowned crossly at the dress she’d worn last night. It was technically in better shape than the other one, but it was wrinkled to all get out. Deciding that the slightly frayed stitching on the unwrinkled dress was less unsightly, she unballed the wrinkled one and refolded it, placing it on top of her nightdress. Then she dressed in the other one, which she supposed must have been red at one time but was now more of a dusty, gray-ish pink. She pulled on a pair of clean stockings, and placed the rest on the pile. She stepped into her boots and laced them. After all this, Adora hesitated at the pin, still tucked in that old lace handkerchief. 

Again, unwillingly, she thought of Catra, and of leaving that pin on Catra’s pillow for her to find later, after Adora had gone.

But, again, Adora’s heart ached at the thought. She unsheathed her pillow from its threadbare case, stuffed all of her items, including the pin, into it, and looked up at the bunk above her one last time.

It was empty as ever.

\---

Shadow Weaver opened her office door at Adora’s first knock.

“I’m proud of you, Adora,” she said without preamble, waiving Adora inside. “Come in. I have a gift for you.”

“A gift?” Adora asked.

“Yes. It’s a goodbye present.” Shadow Weaver gestured at the chair in which Adora usually sat.

Slung across its back was an outfit, and in its seat a matching pair of shoes.

“Girls who have come and gone through this school have left behind various effects,” Shadow Weaver explained, picking up the white pair of stays and holding them out for Adora’s assessment. They were finely embroidered with red thread, weaving back and forth in a floral pattern. “These are the nicest, by far. And I believe they will happen to fit you.”

The tears that had kept Adora company all night threatened to spill again. “Thank you,” Adora said, exhaling shakily.

Shadow Weaver helped Adora re-dress herself, lacing her into the stays as Adora held tight to Shadow Weaver’s desk. As Adora stepped into the vaguely dingy—but still golden-colored—silk clogs, Shadow Weaver plucked Adora’s old dress, boots, and pillowcase from the floor. “I’ll dispose of these for you,” Shadow Weaver said.

“Wait!” Adora nearly cried, lunging forward to grab Shadow Weaver’s wrist, the hand connected to which held her pillowcase. “Can’t I bring them?”

“You will be provided everything you need in Bright Moon. Your old things have no place there, you would be ridiculed.”

“Hold on,” Adora said, snatching the pillowcase from Shadow Weaver’s fingers and, ignoring her indignant admonition, siphoned from it the lace handkerchief. “Can I keep this?” Adora asked, keeping the handkerchief folded so that the pin would not be revealed.

Shadow Weaver eyed it suspiciously. “It is clean enough, I suppose. But use it only in the privacy of your new room, all right?”

Adora nodded and tucked it into her skirt’s pocket.

Shadow Weaver picked up a previously unseen hairbrush from her desk and stepped behind Adora to run it a few times through her hair (being none too tender when it hit a snag). She then took a ribbon from her pocket and tied Adora’s hair back.

“Turn around.”

Adora did as she was told, and stared at her shoes—which were already pinching her toes quite badly—while Shadow Weaver completed her inspection.

“Perfect,” Shadow Weaver said, her eyes creasing with the smile hidden by her veil. “I’ll escort you out. The Queen’s carriages are already prepared, and I imagine she must be waiting for you.”

Adora’s stomach flipped violently, and she followed Shadow Weaver without a word. As they walked through the stone halls and down the stairs, it occurred suddenly to Adora that it was not likely she’d ever see them again. Half of her wanted to take a moment to touch every nook and cranny and reminisce of every moment spent with them, even if it took all day. But every nook and cranny and memory were filled with Catra, Catra, Catra, and as the other half of Adora was trying very, very, very not to think about her, she continued weaving through the building without once asking to stop.

It wasn’t until they crossed the threshold of the institution’s front door that Adora had stumbled to a halt. Not only was the sight of the entrance grounds one that she had seen not through windows but for a handful of times in her life, but also before her waited a small procession of carriages, each gilded with silver trim and pulled by a couple of pure white horses apiece. As Shadow Weaver suspected, Queen Angella was already there, ushering Bow and Glimmer towards a carriage in the middle, flanked by a half-dozen uniformed guards.

“Adora, yay!” Bow hollered, waving voraciously. “You’re coming!”

Adora tried to smile at him, and prayed that she was far enough away for him to miss how it wavered.

“I’ll leave you here,” Shadow Weaver said.

Adora’s head whipped upwards to look at Shadow Weaver, and then this way and that as she scanned the grounds. Then the windows behind her. She nearly pulled a muscle in her neck in craning to see whether she could see someone looking at her from the windows on the upper levels.

Shadow Weaver put a stop to this by, very gently, clasping Adora’s chin with her fingers.

“Catra,” Adora said simply, and then burst into tears.

“You can’t wait for her,” Shadow Weaver said, releasing Adora’s chin and placing her hand on her shoulder instead. “If she missed out on saying goodbye, that is nobody’s fault but her own.”

Adora took deep breaths to try to calm herself. Failed, either from sheer panic or from the stays that were pressing on her diaphragm or both. Hiccupped. “Will you—Will you tell her—”

“I will tell her you wanted to say goodbye. Do not worry.”

“Goo—good. I’m—Can I write to her?”

“You may.”

“O—Okay.”

Shadow Weaver moved her hand one last time to caress Adora’s jaw, her eyes uncharacteristically soft. “Safe travels, Adora. I venture to say that we will meet again.”

Despite herself, Adora leaned into Shadow Weaver’s touch. “Okay.”

Shadow Weaver withdrew her hand, and gestured to the caravan. “Go on, then.”

Adora obediently followed Shadow Weaver’s instructions and, on shaky ankles, walked across the lawn to curtsy deeply before Queen Angella.

The Queen, who had been brushing a hair off Glimmer’s forehead and securing her traveling cloak around her shoulders, turned to greet Adora, but stopped when she saw Adora’s tear-stained face.

“Oh, dear,” the Queen said. She waved to get a footman’s attention. “Will you please go into my daughter’s trunk and retrieve a cloak for Adora? The poor thing will catch her death in this weather.” Then Queen Angella leaned forward to run her thumbs over Adora’s cheeks. “There, now, you’re all right,” she crooned. “Shadow Weaver warned me you would be upset. I understand. You just cry a bit, my darling, you’ll feel better.”

The footman returned and draped a blue, woolen travelling cloak over Adora’s shoulders. Adora stammered her thanks.

Queen Angella seemed to contemplate her, then called over her shoulder, “Bow, Glimmer, will you please come keep Adora company? I need to speak with the madam one more time.” To Adora, she whispered, “I’ll be right back.” And then she swept away, floating gracefully to the steps where Shadow Weaver stood, her wings reflecting rainbows in the morning sun.

“Are you okay?” Bow asked when he got to Adora’s side.

Adora, unable to speak for the thickness in her throat, nodded.

Glimmer, meanwhile, pouted sympathetically. After a moment, she asked, “Do you want to pet the horses?”

Adora sniffed. “Can—Can we do that?”

Glimmer cracked a smirk. “Yeah, they’re our horses. Come here.” She grabbed Adora by the hand and pulled her to the gelding closest. “This one’s Swift Wind. He’s the nicest one by far. Go on, pat him.”

Adora hesitated. “I—I don’t want to scare him, or—”

Rolling her eyes, Glimmer moved Adora’s hand to the horse’s muzzle. “I told you, it’s fine. Pat him.”

Hesitantly, Adora did. The horse nuzzled into her palm. Through the last few tears trickling past her eyelashes, Adora chuckled.

“See!” Glimmer beamed. “He likes you! When we get back to Bright Moon, we can help brush him, if you want.”

“Ugh, you’re gonna _love_ Bright Moon!” Bow said emphatically. “The food is amazing and the grounds are huge and there’s fountains we can swim in and gardens we can dig in—”

“We’ll start small!” Glimmer said, evidently noticing the overwhelmed expression taking over Adora’s features. “Horses first. Then we’ll see where the day takes us.”

Queen Angella reappeared—now looking a bit cross, but only for an unguarded moment before she plastered a warm smile onto her face. “All right. If you’re ready, we’ll go. I’ll be in the front carriage, and you all in this one here. Tell the coachman if you need to stop for any reason, unless—” She cast a sharp look at her daughter. “—that reason is to make sure I see whatever cloud shape might cross the sky at any given point. In that case, take note of it, and tell me all about it once we’re home. Understood?”

Glimmer grinned a bit abashedly. “Understood.”

Once Queen Angella had given each of them a quick kiss on the tops of their heads—Adora included, blushing all the while—she separated from them to stride to the front of the line.

Waving away the proffered hands of several footmen, Glimmer clambered into the carriage pulled by Swift Wind. “Finally! Let’s go home!” She reached out to pull Bow in and, once he was secured, did the same for Adora. “Do you guys want to play a game?”

“Let’s do ‘I Spy,’” Bow replied, settling at once into his seat.

Glimmer groaned in exasperation. “No! Not ‘I Spy!’ Never again ‘I Spy!’”

“What? Why?”

“Because you cheat like crazy and pick something we passed, like, miles ago.”

“I do not! I pick stuff that I can see at the time my turn starts. That’s well within the rules.”

“And then we immediately drive past it!”

“I cannot control the rate at which the carriage is pulled! Take it up with Swift Wind!”

Adora was wholly unaware of Glimmer and Bow’s bickering as she gazed out at the institution, catching one last glance of it before the carriage door was closed in her face. Pushing the curtain back to prolong her view, Adora spotted Shadow Weaver, who watched her with steely eyes from the point at which they’d separated. Adora raised her hand to her, but Shadow Weaver either did not see it or simply did not respond in kind. With a lurch, the procession began to move, and Adora twisted in her seat to keep the school in her sights until they turned a corner and—like magic—it was gone.

\---

At night, the empty halls were loud in their silence.

Although Adora had already been completely exhausted upon their arrival at Bright Moon, and even more so after her first run through her new routine that included a four-course supper, a bath with some kind of sweet-smelling, milky mixture, having her hair towel-dried and brushed by gentle, doting maids, and being tucked into the world’s softest bed wearing a nightdress that stayed on both shoulders and was made from a material even silkier than the sheets—none of this mattered as Adora lay wide awake in the dark, staring unseeingly at the vaulted ceiling above her. She was spread on her back like she was being drawn and quartered, and still her fingertips nowhere near reached the edge of the mattress. She felt like she was sinking into loose sand, being quite literally swallowed by the cavernous bed in which she lay alone.

But it was the silence, she felt, that was really at fault for her lack of ability to drift off. Occasionally, she would hear the almost-mute footsteps of guards patrolling past her room, but otherwise it was deafening.

It was different from how the Fright Zone’s silence had been deafening. There, at least, she could focus on the breathing that would tickle her ear, the even, measured sound that had led her to sleep every single night of her living memory.

In reality, though it felt much longer, it took Adora only twelve minutes of this torture for her bare feet to hit the polished wood floor before she took off out of her room, nearly sprinting down the wing that she knew would lead her to Glimmer.

It helped, spending her first night (and, in all honesty, many subsequent nights) in Glimmer’s bed.

But it still wasn’t the same. It never would be.


	2. The Wedding

Ice frosted the high windows, despite the fact that they shone brilliantly in the midday sun. The frigid temperature outside, however, made no impact on that within the hall, which contained a thick, humid heat that made one feel as if they were slogging through a warm pudding.

Adora’s movements, at least, were certainly more sluggish as her sword made contact with her opponent’s shield.

“Is that all you got, daughter of the mighty She-Ra?” Adora’s attacker snarled, stepping back to absorb the impact and using that momentum to throw Adora sideways.

Adora landed and rolled over her shoulder. “Hardly!” she spat back. Once she steadied herself in a crouch on the balls of her feet, Adora kicked out, whipping her foot around to crash into her attacker’s ankle.

The other woman crumpled instantly with a pained hiss but, before Adora could rise and sink her sword into the flagstone beside her opponent’s head, her arms were pinned to her side and, like a column, she fell sideways to the ground.

“Ow!” Adora hollered, her shoulder taking the brunt of the impact and protesting for it—though she did miss getting impaled by her own sword, which had fallen to the ground with a clatter, so she was at least grateful for that. She struggled against the net that bound her like a spider’s prey. “Cheating! That’s cheating!”

“No,” said a previously unseen woman, recalling the net and bending to help Adora’s first attacker to a standing position. “That's lesson number—What must it be at this point? A billion?”

“I think it’s somewhere closer to the three thousands, darling,” said the attacker, who leaned upon her partner as she tested her ankle’s range of movement.

“Whatever. Lesson number three thousand and who cares. Keep an eye out for your enemies, but also—” The second woman kissed the cheek of the attacker, who beamed. “—for your enemy’s allies.”

Adora blushed at their display of affection but, stretched out on the ground, breathing laboriously, and fanning herself with the neck of her shirt, she felt that it was hidden rather well. “I feel like that lesson was already covered in, like, the first hundred or so.”

“Then you should’ve remembered it, huh?”

Adora picked her head up to survey her attacker. “You okay, Spinnerella? I didn’t hurt you too bad, did I?”

Spinnerella tried her weight, using her partner’s bicep as a crutch. “Nah. It twinges a bit, but nothing I haven’t had to deal with before.” Apparently satisfied that she could at least stand, she grinned indulgently at Adora. “Nice moves, though. That might not work quite as well with someone with stronger ankles, but it’s definitely a good trick to have up your sleeve. It could throw them off balance, at least.”

Adora let her head fall back down, and gave the two women a halfhearted thumbs up. “Cool. Thanks.”

“Netossa,” Spinnerella instructed, tipping her chin at Adora’s form. “Pick her up, won’t you?” Otherwise I fear she won’t make it to her bath before dinner.”

“Don’t need one,” Adora mumbled sleepily.

“Oh, yes, you do,” Netossa concurred, keeping her hands at Spinnerella’s back and elbow to ensure that she was steady before doing as she was told. She grabbed Adora’s wrist and, without much help from Adora, pulled her to her feet. “No one will sit next to you if you don’t. Not even Madame Razz.”

“Razz loves me,” Adora objected as her feet trod beside Netossa’s towards the door. “And she’s the one who helps me bathe, so I can’t think it bothers her much.”

“I think in all fairness Razz probably loves you most,” Spinnerella said kindly, limping along beside them. “But maybe that’s why she’s on bath duty. The faster you’re clean, the sooner she can breathe through her nose.”

Adora released a _pbbt_ sound through her lips. “You guys are so overexaggerating. I’m fine!”

“I promise you, Adora, you’re not,” Netossa muttered with a wave of her hand in front of her nose.

The three of them didn’t reach the door before a person quite literally materialized in front of their faces.

“Adora, there you are!” Glimmer shouted. On her intake of breath before her next words, however, Glimmer’s face pursed. “Oh, _god_ , Adora.”

“I don’t smell that bad!” Adora said flatly.

“I’ll take her from here,” Glimmer told Spinnerella and Netossa. “We’ll see you guys at dinner?”

“Sure thing, li’l sparkles,” Netossa replied.

Without further ado, Glimmer took Adora’s forearm and, in an instant, they were standing in Adora’s bedroom. There was a hot bath already waiting, which Adora had to admit looked enticing.

What didn’t look half as enticing was the array of pokey brushes carried in the arms of the short, ancient woman who was just coming around the corner from her service quarters.

“Mara, dearie!” she exclaimed, taking Adora’s forearm from Glimmer and pulling her towards the tub. “Look at you, pouring sweat on Razz’s clean carpet. Now, off with these rags,” she added as she tugged Adora’s shirt out of her breeches and yanked it over her head.

Adora’s arms automatically went to cover her chest, in spite of the countless number of times that either Madame Razz or Glimmer had seen her nude. “I can get my own pants, Razz! Glimmer, will you—”

A shift, thrown from Glimmer’s spot perched on Adora’s bed, hit Adora softly in the face. Meanwhile, Adora twisted away from Razz’s knobbled hands, which had reached for the top button of Adora’s breeches.

“Thanks, I got it,” she said, pulling the shift over her body and kicking off her shoes before wriggling out of her pants. She untucked her ponytail from the back of the garment and asked, “Okay. What did you need, Glimmer?”

“Oh, I think you need to be sitting before I tell you,” Glimmer said, a wide, conspiratorial grin overtaking her face.

“And this couldn’t wait until—Ouch, Razz!” Adora moaned, just as Razz pulled Adora’s hair free of her ponytail with a harsh tug.

“Hush, Mara. Get in.”

Adora did as instructed, stepping over the lip of the tub and lowering herself into the pleasantly warm water. Her weary muscles sang, and she took a moment to submerge her head. Coming back up, Adora wiped her eyes and continued, “Anyway. Like, this couldn’t wait until I was done here?”

“Nope,” Glimmer replied simply, popping the “p” sound with her lips. She rose from Adora’s bed to pull up a stool at Adora’s side, and withdrew a piece of cardstock from her skirt pocket as she did. “You will never guess who’s getting married now.”

Adora smirked. “You and Bow?”

Glimmer’s face went instantly crimson. “Adora!”

“What?” Adora said, leaning her head back in the water so her hair could flow around her like seaweed. “You’ve been courting for long enough now, haven’t you?”

Glimmer thwacked Adora’s forehead with the card, punctuating each word. “It’s.” _Thwack._ “Been.” _Thwack._ “Three.” _Thwack._ “Weeks!” _Thwack._

Guffawing, Adora pushed Glimmer’s hand away. “More like eighteen years,” she chuckled.

Glimmer groaned and raised her hands to the heavens like someone up there could talk some sense into Adora. “We didn’t even meet until we were, like, five.”

“Fine, then. Thirteen years.”

“Regardless!” Glimmer snapped, shaking the card at Adora’s nose. “Wrong. Guess again.”

“I dunno. Mermista and Sea Hawk?”

“No, they were married in the spring.”

“Were they?”

“You literally went to their wedding. Remember that trip to Salineas? We were there for, like, a month?”

“It’s hard to keep track. Ack! Razz!”

“Stop squirming, Mara,” Razz commanded as she continued her assault of Adora’s shoulders with a scrub brush.

“Do you give up?” Glimmer asked, looking smug.

“Yeah, okay. Who’s getting married, then?”

Glimmer grasped the edge of the tub and paused (surely for dramatic effect) before gushing, “Entrapta.”

“ _What?_ ” Adora gasped. She tried to sit up, but Razz held her back by the neck of her shift and moved her attention to combing the knots out of Adora’s hair. Through occasional winces, Adora asked, “But, to _who_? I didn’t know that Entrapta was even courting anybody! And hasn’t she been in the Fright Zone for her research thingy the last couple of months?”

“Funny you mention that,” Glimmer said through an absolutely sinister smile. “Guess who’s the groom.”

“Shut up,” Adora said, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. “Not. . . Not somebody from the Fright Zone?”

“Not just somebody from the Fright Zone. It’s Lord Hordak.”

Adora cocked her head to one shoulder (which Razz immediately pushed back upright). “‘It’s Lord Hordak’ what? Like, his son, or something? Does he have a son?”

“No! Adora. Entrapta is marrying Lord Hordak.”

There was a beat as this information sunk in. Then Adora’s jaw dropped. “Oh, _ew!_ ” Adora groaned.

“I know!”

“Ugh, my _god._ ”

“I _know!_ ”

“How on Etheria did that happen?” Adora said over a sudden urge to gag. “He’s, like, a thousand.”

“Oh,” Razz cut in with a particularly hard brush against Adora’s scalp. “So thousand-year-olds can’t love?”

Adora gingerly massaged the part of her head that she was sure was now missing a patch of hair. “No! No, it’s less that he’s, you know. . . older,” she said, choosing her words very carefully. “It’s more the fact that he can. . . love? I mean, he just never struck me as the type.”

“Everyone can love,” Razz said as if that settled the matter, and she resumed her task by moving to run a pumice stone over the calluses of Adora’s fingers.

Glimmer’s face looked much more grave as she said, “So there’s something that my mom brought up. I mean, do you know what it will mean, Entrapta marrying Hordak?”

“It will. . . prove that there’s someone out there for everyone.”

Snorting appreciatively, Glimmer shook her head. “Hordak, Lord of the Fright Zone, younger brother to the Emperor, marrying the Princess of Crypto Castle? Come on, Adora, it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Adora didn’t think it was so obvious until, without warning, she understood completely. “Holy shit,” Adora said.

Glimmer nodded solemnly.

\---

“The Horde Empire will be taking Dryl,” Queen Angella explained over dinner.

To her left, an empty chair. The next one over, however, held Bow, and then Adora, then Glimmer, Netossa, and Spinnerella. All listened intently, their meals largely forgotten on their plates.

“Is there anything we can do?” Adora asked, her corset creaking a bit as she leaned abruptly forward. “Dryl shares a border with Bright Moon! If the Horde takes it, that brings them the closest they’ve ever come.”

“I know,” Angella said with a long sigh. “But the fact of the matter is that there is simply nothing we can do. Princess Entrapta is marrying Lord Hordak willingly.”

“As far as we can tell,” Bow grumbled.

Angella frowned. “Indeed. But if she marries him willingly, then she joins her kingdom to his willingly. As the Fright Zone is part of the Empire, Dryl will be, too. Without a request for help, or any sign, really, that any part of this is being done by force, Bright Moon has no jurisdiction to intervene.”

“You could inform Entrapta,” Netossa added testily, “that defecting on her alliance with Bright Moon renders it null and void.”

“I could if I wanted to incite an all-out war,” Angella scoffed. “As it stands right now, Bright Moon has friendly relations with the Horde—at least on the surface. I think they still believe us too powerful to take on, as much as I’m sure they’d like to.”

“Less powerful now,” Glimmer whined, “with a buffer kingdom out of the picture.”

Angella narrowed her eyes slightly. “Glimmer, I hope you think of Dryl more highly than as a mere ‘buffer.’”

Glimmer groaned wordlessly. “Of course I do! But all the ‘friendly relations’ in the world are not stopping the Horde from inching closer to us all the time!” She casted a significant look at the empty chair, which was followed by every eye in the room. “Just because we can’t pin anything on them for sure doesn’t mean they’re not doing something bad. We have to do something, even if that just means proving it. If we had proof, real proof, we could get the other independent kingdoms behind us! Salineas, Plumeria, the Kingdom of Snows—”

“Glimmer!” Angella interrupted, so sharply that it made Adora wince. Then Angella took a deep sigh before she continued in a far softer voice, “I will not entertain planning active warfare against any region as powerful as the Empire. Neither tonight nor in the foreseeable future. When and if we need to defend ourselves, we will do so—with all of those kingdoms by our sides, I am certain. _Those_ friendly relations extend far past surface level.”

“I would’ve said that of Dryl, too, before this,” Glimmer muttered into her lap.

There was a tense silence as Angella and Glimmer looked at anything but each other. Adora filled it by shoveling a forkful of potatoes into her mouth—so buttery and blissful that, despite the awkwardness in the room, it was with Herculean effort that Adora stifled a moan of pleasure. She’d still not gotten over the quality of Bright Moon food, despite the years, and doubted she ever would.

“So, um,” Bow interrupted the lag in conversation. “Are we going? To the wedding, I mean?”

Angella sighed and shot Bow a look of gratitude. “Yes, that is what I originally wanted to discuss. We need at least some representation at the nuptials, lest our absence be perceived as a purposeful slight. The question is which among us will attend.” Angella looked to Spinnerella and Netossa. “I believe that you two should probably stay in Bright Moon. With the Horde’s occupation, Dryl will no longer be safe for you.”

Adora was torn from her potatoey reverie, painfully swallowing an over-large lump of mash as she stared at her own lap. Her cheeks grew hot, as they always did when Netossa and Spinnerella’s relationship was explicitly addressed. It was not that it made her uncomfortable. She adored the pair, separately and together. Rather, it was just. . . Well. It was something Adora had never been able to name. Something that affected her much differently than Glimmer and Bow’s relationship ever had.

Netossa scowled, effectively pulling Adora from her own existential crisis. “Our marriage is legal in Bright Moon,” Netossa said as she placed her hand on Spinnerella’s shoulder. “Neither Dryl nor the Empire has any authority to punish us for it. And, anyway, what a load of—”

“I think Angella is right, darling,” Spinnerella interrupted with a pat of her fingers on Netossa’s. “Many of our allies are aware of our marriage, and knowledge of that could have spread to the other kingdoms that don’t look on it as favorably. I wouldn’t trust them to not find some reason or another to arrest us. It would be a wholly unnecessary complication.”

“Yeah,” Bow concurred. “Look at my dads! Look at how long it took for Angella to bargain for their release.”

Spinnerella nodded. “Exactly. Plus, it’s not as if you and I know Entrapta very well. What would be the gain?”

“The gain?” Netossa spat. “There is an incalculable amount of gain in being visible. Do you think there is no one else like us in territories outside of Bright Moon and our allies? How else can we expect real change, short of—”

“That’s enough, Netossa,” Angella said, kindly but sternly. “I understand your frustration, and I share it. But now is not the time. Agreed?”

Spinnerella echoed, “Agreed,” at once. Netossa did, too, after Spinnerella dropped her hand beneath the table and—if Adora’s suspicion was correct—pinched Netossa’s side.

“All right, then,” Angella said, turning to appraise Glimmer, Bow, and Adora. “I will be staying back as well.”

“What a surprise,” Glimmer mumbled.

Bow shushed her and, thankfully, Angella overlooked the comment with no more acknowledgement than a long blink of her eyes. “That leaves you three,” Angella continued.

Immediately, Bow said, “We’ll go. We love Entrapta, and none of us have anything to fear from the Empire.”

“Yeah!” Adora added, if only to support Bow and not because she really felt particularly enthused. “Sounds great! When is it?”

Angella peered down at the invitation tucked next to her wine glass. “A month from today, coincidentally.”

“Cool,” Adora said, staring upward as she attempted a quick calculation. “So we’d have to leave. . .”

“In about three weeks,” Angella supplied.

Adora slumped a bit in her chair, the ribbing of her stays poking harshly into her stomach as she did so. “Oh. Cool. Dryl’s a week of travel away. Of course. That’s. . . That’s fun.”

Glimmer, who had been glowering silently up to this moment, chuckled. “So fun. You know who’s gonna have the most fun?”

Adora cocked her head to the side. “Who?”

Glimmer smirked evilly. “Razz.”

“ _Mara!_ ” Bow moaned, clutching Adora’s shoulder dramatically. “ _How Razz’s back aches! Lend me your pillows, Mara dearie!_ ”

“ _Mara!_ ” Glimmer joined in, throwing the back of her hand to her forehead. “ _Grandma Razz can’t feel her feet! Rub them, please, my Mara!”_

“Gross!” Adora laughed as she threw them off with her elbows. “I’m not rubbing her feet again. Not after last time.”

“ _Oh, of course sweet, sweet Mara!_ ” Spinnerella cut in from across the table with the best impression of Madame Razz across the board. “ _After all, Razz only bathed you and brushed your hair and tucked you in and chased away your nightmares. Razz expects nothing at all in return!_ ”

Netossa cracked a smile at that, and Angella hid hers behind a delicate bite of food.

“I shall be sorry to miss it,” Angella said with a barely contained giggle after she swallowed and dabbed her lips with her napkin. “So very sorry, indeed.”

\---

They were three days into the journey to Dryl when Glimmer asked, “Do you think you’ll know any of the wedding guests?”

Adora, upon whose lap Madame Razz dozed peacefully, looked up confusedly. “I mean, I assume Mermista and Sea Hawk are invited? And Perfuma, and Frosta. Like, basically the whole princess squad, right?”

Glimmer rolled her eyes and leaned forward from where she’d been resting against Bow’s arm. “No, I meant anyone _you_ know. From the Fright Zone.”

Adora blinked. Truthfully, before that moment, the fact that there would be Fright Zone attendants had never occurred to her. “Oh. I. . . I don’t know? It’s not like there’s much Fright Zone nobility aside from Hordak, is there? And it’s not like I knew anyone from outside the institution anyway.”

Adora couldn’t imagine that any of her former classmates would be in attendance. But, still, the idea of it made her stomach do a somersault.

She had mixed feelings about whether she’d want to see any of them—one in particular—or not.

“But wasn’t the institution for kids of nobility?” Bow asked, his hand absentmindedly rubbing circles on Glimmer’s shoulder blades. “You and me, at least. Even in the couple days I was there, I heard rumors of others. And didn’t the scary lady in charge of the place say something like that?”

“Shadow Weaver?” Adora frowned. “I think so, actually. We overheard her when we were listening at the door that day.”

“You and. . .” Glimmer let her question drop.

Adora answered anyway. “Yeah,” she said, and then peered back down at Razz, gently brushing a hair off of her forehead and tucking it into her coif.

“Anyway,” Bow interrupted the awkward silence. “All I meant was that maybe a couple of them rose up the ranks, you know? Wouldn’t it be kind of fun to see them again?”

“Yeah, right,” Adora said with a snort.

Razz’s eyes popped open at that moment. “No snorting!” she scolded, adjusting herself so that her head fell deeper into Adora’s lap. “Unladylike. Just like your mother. Girl used to run me ragged.” Razz smiled dolefully then, patting Adora’s cheek with a withered hand. “I miss her.”

Adora pressed Razz’s hand to her face with her own palm. “I bet you do. At least you don’t have two of us to deal with, though, right?”

Razz sat up, shooing Adora away with a flurry of hands. “Don’t get me started! Now fetch Razz a snack, won’t you, Mara, dearie? Then we’ll have to tell them to stop in a little bit.” She pointed her knobbly finger at Bow and Glimmer in turn, as if something was their fault. “Travel is bad for digestion.”

\---

The trip in total took half a day longer than anticipated with Madame Razz in tow. As such, they arrived at the Crypto Castle late in the night before the wedding. Glimmer, Adora, and Razz were split apart from Bow by various staff members, who ushered them to their own guest quarters. Adora and Glimmer tumbled into the same bed, both still fully dressed, and fell asleep without much to do.

They were woken by Razz and a pair of Dryl maids early the next morning, though it had seemed mere minutes later. They were undressed, bathed, dressed again, and by midmorning Adora and Glimmer were walking back down the halls to the Castle’s entrance.

“Have I ever mentioned,” Adora groaned, finicking with the armpits of her bodice, “that I hate corsets?”

“Frequently,” Glimmer said. Noticing Adora, Glimmer batted Adora’s hands with a frenzied, “Will you stop that? Anyone could come around a corner and see you!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Adora replied, dropping her hands to clasp them in front of her stomach, just as Glimmer had. They walked for a few more seconds in silence before Adora added, “And clogs. I don’t think there’s a high heel on Etheria that doesn’t pinch my feet.”

Glimmer groaned to the ceiling. “Yes, poor Adora. The world weeps for you.”

“I’m just saying,” Adora grumbled. Her hands moved again to pick at her sleeves, just for them to be again slapped by Glimmer. “Jeez, sorry! What’s up with you today?”

Once more, Glimmer groaned, but it was a bit subdued as she said, “Sorry. I’m just agitated. Long journey. No sleep. Officially losing Dryl to the Horde in about twenty minutes. It’s a day.”

“It’s a _week_ ,” Adora added emphatically. “Wedding today, party tonight, tea on Friday, endless events in between. I’m exhausted already.”

“Me, too,” Glimmer agreed with a huff.

Sensing a gloomy day ahead, Adora said, “You look great, though. I really like that dress. It’s very. . . Violet?”

Glimmer pursed her lips, looking down at her skirts and running her fingers over the moon-patterned embroidery. “Plum. But thank you. It was a nice try.”

“You’re welcome. And if anyone asks, mine is. . . ?”

Glimmer grinned. “Salmon.”

“Salmon,” Adora repeated. “Why all the food? Why not just pink?”

Rolling her eyes, Glimmer chortled, “You will never learn, will you?”

“Learn what?” said Bow, joining them as they reached the end of the hall.

“Nothing, as usual,” Glimmer said. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Bow replied, taking Glimmer’s hand and brushing her knuckles against his lips.

“Not in front of the chaperone, huh?” Adora chided. “Barf.”

With a smirk, Bow stepped between them, offering each an elbow. “Well, shall we go witness the destruction of one of our closest alliances?”

Adora accepted Bow’s arm with a, “We shall,” and once Glimmer had linked herself to them as well they rounded the corner into a surprisingly crowded entrance hall. Over the mass collection of wigs and hats, a figure jumped up and down on the spot at the far end of the room.

“Bow!” the woman called, her blonde curls bouncing with her and tangling in her flamboyant flower crown. “Adora, Glimmer! We’ll save you a seat!”

Bow shot her an enthusiastic thumbs up, and soon the woman disappeared in the swarm slowly spilling into an adjoining room.

“So Perfuma’s here, at least,” Adora said, scratching at the pins fixed at the nape of her neck.

“Adora, I swear to god, I will beat you with your own hands if you don’t stop fussing with yourself.”

“Wow, Glimmer,” Bow said with a barely concealed smile. “Grumpy much?”

“I already told Adora,” Glimmer said snappishly. “Losing Dryl. Long week. Blah, blah, blah.” They entered the densest part of the crowd, and Glimmer dropped her voice. “The sooner we get this part over with, the better.”

“Yeah,” Adora snickered, “and I’m sure it has nothing to do with seeing Perfuma for the first time since you and Bow started going out.”

“And why would that bother me?” Glimmer replied, heated voice betraying any attempt at sounding casual.

“Because Perfuma used to _looove_ Bow,” Adora teased.

“No, she _didn’t!_ ”

“She did,” Bow confirmed with a roguish wink. “Who wouldn’t?”

Adora let out a good belly laugh just as they passed the threshold to the main hall, which had been arranged in rows of benches separated by an aisle. Otherwise, the room was strangely plain, which was very at odds with what Adora was used to seeing at weddings. Instead, it was the wide array of guests that made the room kind of spectacular. A variety of bright, colorful garb decorated the left side of the aisle, carried by guests of those kingdoms with close ties to the bride. The right side of the aisle, however, displayed a monotonous palate of dark tones, varying only occasionally in hues.

On the left, she spotted Perfuma, twisted completely in her seat to wave them down and point excitedly at the three empty seats next to her.

“There she is,” Adora said, leading her line by the elbows, weaving through slow-moving guests until they got to the right row. She waved Glimmer in front of her, who frowned pointedly before shuffling to sit beside Perfuma. Bow sat next to her, and Adora next to him, directly adjacent to the aisle.

“Hey, guys!” Perfuma greeted, lunging to take Glimmer by her hands. “I’m so excited to see you! Congratulations on your courtship, I wish you two a lifetime of peace and happiness!”

“Ugh,” came a voice from directly in front of Bow, the person to whom it belonged turning in her seat and rolling her eyes. “She’s been like this all day. Insufferable.”

Perfuma gasped. “Mermista! It’s a wedding! Today of all days is the day to celebrate unions and love and—”

“The systematic conquest of our allies. Yay,” Mermista said, her face and tone completely deadpan.

“Mermista, my dearest,” said a young man next to her, directly in front of Adora. “Perhaps we’d better save such less-than-favorable topics for private conversation away from prying ears. Rather, why don’t we enjoy the ceremony, take the time to fondly remember our own union, and wish Entrapta and her bridegroom a marriage as happy and full as ours?”

Mermista narrowed her eyes. “Did you just tell me to shut up? Ugh, I can’t with you today.”

The man barked out a jaunty laugh and turned to address the rest of the group. “My beautiful bride, bearing sharp wit and sharper tongue.” He went to brush a strand of her dark blue hair behind her ear. “I fall more in love with you with every passing minute.”

“Oh, my god, Sea Hawk, _stop,_ ” Mermista snapped, flinching away from her husband’s hands (though not before Adora noticed a dusting of pink spread across her cheeks).

“I’m with Mermista,” said a young girl on the other side of Mermista. “This sucks.”

“Frosta,” Perfuma reprimanded. “Language.”

“Sorry,” Frosta said with a pout. “I meant, _This_ fucking _sucks._ ”

“Frosta!”

Ignoring her friends’ laughter and animated conversation, Adora surveyed the dark crowd on the other side of the aisle. As she suspected, from the faces she could see in the rows behind hers, none were familiar. The identity of the people in the rows in front of hers were hard to tell, though, as they all had their backs to her.

“Are you all staying the full week, then?” Bow asked.

“Yep,” Mermista replied. “Unfortunately.”

Glimmer scoffed, “Says the girl whose wedding lasted a month.”

“That was all our parents,” Mermista explained with a groan. “And Sea Hawk. Dude loves a wedding.”

Adora scanned row after row of guests. Not only were their backs totally nondescript, but wigs and hats and the occasional crown made it nearly impossible to pick up on any identifying features.

Not that Adora was looking for anything in particular, of course. She was just curious.

“I kind of like it here,” said Frosta appreciatively, kicking up her feet a bit to show off her calf-length skirts. “S’much warmer than the Kingdom of Snows. Winter’s a bitch there.”

“ _Frosta_ , my word!” Perfuma tutted. “Where did you pick up such vulgar language?”

Frosta grinned toothily at Glimmer. “My pen pal.”

It was about ten rows in front of her, across the aisle, that Adora spotted something. One of those silly, curled wigs that men wore, but sitting awkwardly atop the head of a person who, even sitting, towered above his neighbors. Because of his height, Adora could just see a stretch of green, scaly skin between the bottom of his wig and the top of his collar.

“Rogelio?” Adora whispered to herself.

“It’s starting!” Perfuma exclaimed, and only then was Adora pulled from her concentrated surveillance to realize that the aisle was clear of all guests and that a buzz of anticipation had begun to swell. The doors at the back of the room, which had closed at some point, reopened loudly, just as a string of musicians at the front began to play the procession music.

And then in walked Lord Hordak, who looked just as imposing as he did in Adora’s memories, with a sullen face more appropriate for a death march than for a groom awaiting his bride.

Accompanying him, meanwhile, was the Emperor.

The guests stood en masse, curtsying and bowing in a wave as Hordak and the Emperor passed. Adora could feel her friends tense around her as the Emperor, who walked on the side of the aisle closest to them, strode by them. He didn’t look at them once, his eyes instead fixed on the altar before him. His robes, in a train twice as long as his brother’s, came so close to Adora’s toes that she briefly considered stomping on them.

Hordak and the Emperor came upon the row in which—Adora was now completely certain—Rogelio stood. He faced her now, watching the procession, and he looked so exactly the same as he had in adolescence (just much, much taller) that Adora couldn’t help feeling a spike of fondness at seeing him. She’d always liked Rogelio.

Next to him, though, now visible as she craned her head over the crowd to watch, was Lonnie. Another spike of fondness, but also a bit of guilt. Adora would never have described her and Lonnie to be very close, but they had been friends. And Adora certainly hadn’t written _her_ any letters in the years since she saw her last.

Adora couldn’t see the person next to Lonnie, as another, unknown guest stood in the way. But Adora did finally notice, two over from Lonnie and standing at the end of the row closest to the aisle, Kyle. He bowed as Hordak and the Emperor past him, his crown—a crown!—slipping a bit down his forehead as he did. Adora wanted to laugh, but also to hide, to say hello, everything all at once.

A welcome distraction arose as a woman entered the hall, a gargantuan figure with a bouquet clutched between her claws, her scorpion’s tail poking out from under her dark petticoat. Adora recognized her instantly as an older girl from the Fright Zone institution, though she had never learned her name. The woman smiled bashfully, her gait an odd two-step as she stepped one foot forward, brought the other foot to meet it in the middle, put that foot forward, back to the middle, repeat, repeat, repeat down the aisle. This bridesmaid also wore a tiara atop her crown, and Adora was gobsmacked to realize that all those rumors about her classmates having royal or noble lineages perhaps were not childish flights of fancy after all. Her, Bow, this woman, Kyle of all people! Adora literally had to shake her head back and forth, just for something to do to bring her back to reality.

The bridesmaid’s grin widened just as she was passing Adora’s group, and she picked up her claw to wave excitedly at Kyle’s row. The woman who stood beside Kyle, now visible in the part in the crowd, waved lackadaisically in return.

And Adora’s heart gave one last, great beat—loud enough for the entire wedding to hear, certainly—before stopping dead in her chest.

Adora could tell the exact moment that Catra noticed her, too. It was when her fingers curled back into her palm, her face falling into an expression of such pure, unadulterated shock, her mismatched eyes unblinking and boring straight into Adora’s own.

She wore a dark burgundy dress with a black velvet overlay and a neckline that plunged perhaps a centimeter deeper than was fashionable. Her hair was sleek, arranged over her shoulder in orderly, smooth curls, absent the tufts of baby frizz that Adora remembered used to pop from under her ears. Most noticeable, however, was the diadem fixed under her hairline, plated in black gold and encrusted with deep red rubies.

She was different, sure. But it was undeniably Catra. Adora would’ve recognized her anywhere, even if it had been seven more years—or twenty, or one hundred—before she saw her again. And she very much had the impression that Catra felt the same, if the haunted recognition on her face was any indication.

Adora blinked, and her mouth popped open on its own accord as if she was about to say something, as if Catra would be able to hear her from thirty feet away.

“Ooh, hi! Hi, guys!” came a shrill cry from Adora’s right, and she whipped around to see Entrapta, waving emphatically at her group with her bouquet hand. Despite the fact that, as the bride, Entrapta was at the moment the most pinnacle center of attention, Entrapta slowed her journey to the end of the aisle to say, “I’m so glad you’re here! I’ve gotta go, but I’ll see you at dinner, okay? I have so much to tell you!”

Adora nodded and, a bit choked, whispered, “Y—Yeah, for sure. Go, uh, go do your thing.”

Entrapta picked up the pace, her uncharacteristically puffy gown shaking in her wake, her long, braided and beflowered pigtails bouncing in her excitement. She made it to Hordak’s side, the music trailed off, and the Emperor, now standing between the bride and groom, addressed the crowd. “Good day, ladies and gentlemen, family and friends. As we bask in the good, pure light of this morning’s happiest of occasions. . .”

“Adora,” Bow whispered, grabbing Adora by her wrist and pulling her gently to her seat. “You can sit down now.”

“Oh, right,” Adora said distractedly before her attention drifted back to Catra’s row. She could see Kyle at the end of his row, lanky and tow-headed as ever, even as a man, but Catra had been lost to the crowd. Regardless, Adora’s eyes refused to look away from the spot for more than a few seconds at a time.

Of the ceremony, she managed to catch the Emperor say something about everlasting unity and the joining of two households and whatever other muck, and she did just witness half of the exchange of tokens—Entrapta giving Hordak some kind of pin. When it was Hordak’s turn to give Entrapta something in return, out of the corner of her eye Adora noticed Catra’s slender hand cup around Lonnie’s ear, Catra’s hair as she leaned to the side to whisper something. Lonnie’s shoulders shrugged, or maybe she had chuckled? Adora couldn’t be sure. Just as soon as they had appeared, Catra’s hand and hair slipped back out of view.

“. . . man and wife,” the Emperor announced, and the crowd erupted into applause as Entrapta’s hair pushed her up to plant a chaste kiss on her new husband’s lips. Hordak, although still largely non-emotive, seemed to smile the smallest amount as Entrapta pulled away.

“Well, that’s that,” Glimmer said, dropping her hands into her lap after only a few claps. “Dinner better be worth the trip, at least.”

Together, Entrapta and Hordak travelled back down the aisle, Entrapta waving at everyone they passed. Following them was the Emperor, and then the bridesmaid, who stopped at Catra’s row to pull that group alongside her. However, the rest of the crowd rose at the same time and, again, Catra was hidden behind them.

“Adora!” Bow said, and Adora stared up at him.

“What?”

“You can stand now!”

“Oh,” Adora said, peering around herself to confirm that, indeed, she was the only one in her vicinity that remained sitting.

“What is up with you?” Bow asked as Adora shot to her feet.

“Nothing!” she lied through her teeth, patting her skirts for dust that didn’t exist just for something to do with her hands. “Nothing, just—Nothing.”

“Okay, weirdo,” Bow said, his eyebrow cocked upward. “I say this with all the love in my heart, but can you move, then? So we can file out?”

“ _Pssh_ , yes, of _course_ ,” Adora said frantically. “No doubt, let me just— _oh_ —” As she took a step, Adora’s shoe caught on the front of her skirt and skidded forward. Adora caught herself on the arm of the pew, released a moan of relief, looked up, and sucked that sigh right back in.

Catra, who had been passing her at that moment, smirked at her with narrow, unfriendly eyes. Then, wordlessly, her group moved into the entrance hall, and she was gone.

“Was that—Was that Catra?” Bow asked.

“Catra?” Glimmer said, popping around Bow’s arm into view. “Like, _Catra_ Catra?”

“Well, that explains a lot,” Bow said, placing a hand on Adora’s shoulder and guiding her gingerly into the queue of people filing out of the hall. “Let’s go process, shall we? With drinks.”

\---

On Adora’s third glass of champagne, she was ready to answer questions.

“Catra was my best friend at the institution,” she explained plainly, running her finger absentmindedly around the rim of her glass. She and her friends were seated around a strange, geometric fountain, and the winter air was bracing on her cheeks. It was nice, Adora decided. It was nice to have that to keep her a little more clear-headed than two-and-a-half glasses of champagne would usually allow. “I haven’t seen her since I left. And I left without saying goodbye, so, yeah. I don’t figure she’s super psyched to see me.”

“But you wrote her!” Glimmer, at the tail end of her fourth glass, commiserated. “You wrote her literally every day that first year. And, even then, you’d still write her, like, once a month until, what, three years ago?”

Adora frowned. “Two. I figured when she turned sixteen she wouldn’t be at the institution anymore. And I never got any forwarding address.”

“You never got jack all!” Glimmer hiccupped into the back of her hand, and then said, “So, in my personal opinion, she’s given up any right to be mad at you.”

“Which one is she?” Perfuma asked.

“Cat ears, tail, dark dress, boob window,” Bow said. “Can’t miss her.”

Perfuma and the others (Adora included, if she was being honest) scanned the crowd around them to no avail.

“Must be inside,” Mermista mused with a shrug. “Whatever. We can confront her later, I guess.”

“No!” Adora said, waving her hands wildly in front of herself, coming all too close to spilling champagne on her dress. “No confronting!”

“Does she have a ship, perchance?” Sea Hawk asked with a too-casual twirl of his moustache.

“No ship-burning either!”

“Eh, I’m on his side for this one,” said Mermista, leaning into Sea Hawk’s shoulder a bit. “There’s no bad vibes a little nautical arson can’t fix.”

“You are everything I’ve ever wanted,” Sea Hawk murmured into her cheek, pressing a kiss into her hairline.

Mermista mumbled, “Yeah, yeah,” but accepted the kiss with soft smile.

“I’m going to go get another drink,” Adora announced suddenly, standing and sidestepping her friends to get back to the main path.

“Get me one!” Glimmer shouted behind her.

“Don’t!” Bow shouted as well.

Adora weaved through clumps of wedding guests, laughing uproariously or chatting snidely behind their hands. With Adora’s third empty glass in hand, she found it a little more difficult not to snort under her breath in annoyance. By the time she made it back inside, she was already a bit too warm for comfort from the crowd. Where was the drink station, again? Or should she have been flagging down one of the servers instead?

On her second rotation around the room, Adora thought she saw a long, feline tail wind around a corner. She took one step towards it, but was stopped in her tracks.

“Adora,” said a familiar voice.

“Shadow Weaver?” Adora asked automatically, and upon spinning on her heel she saw that she was right. Shadow Weaver stood before her, standing as tall and as proud as ever, clutching a goblet of dark wine in her hands. Adora dropped into a deep curtsy on muscle memory alone. “Shadow Weaver. Hello.” Adora looked up and, despite herself, grinned. “It’s good to see you.”

“And you,” Shadow Weaver returned with atypically kind eyes. “It has been a long time. Let me have a proper look at you.”

Adora stood to her full height and rotated once where she stood.

“Lovely,” Shadow Weaver said, a maternal edge to her tone. It simultaneously unsettled Adora and thrilled her to no end. “You’ve grown into a proper young lady. I’m very pleased to see it.”

“Thank you,” Adora said. She grimaced a bit as she added, “I’m sorry that I haven’t had time to write you in a while.”

“A year, to be precise,” said Shadow Weaver, lifting her veil discreetly to take a sip of her wine. “But no matter. I understand that the Duchess of Grayskull has rather a lot to attend to these days.”

Adora wanted to tell her the truth and say, _Not really._ But she didn’t feel that that would earn her much in the way of Shadow Weaver’s approval. Rather, Adora said, “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Yes, well,” Shadow Weaver sighed. “Lord Hordak was kind enough to offer me an invitation. He did found the institution, of course. And, surprisingly, quite a few former students are in attendance. I’m sure he thought it would be a nice reunion of sorts.”

“Yeah,” Adora said, her heartbeat quickening a bit at the open segue. “I saw that. I saw—Well, I saw Rogelio.”

One of Shadow Weaver’s eyebrows slanted dramatically. “Ah. Did you?”

Adora nodded. “Mhm. Yep.”

“And so I assume you saw Catra as well.”

Adora swallowed uncomfortably. “Oh, well. Um. Yes. I did.”

Shadow Weaver hummed distastefully. “Yes, her _Majesty_ has made quite a start, hasn’t she?”

“Her—” Adora cocked her head to the side. “Her Majesty?”

“How many of those have you indulged in?” Shadow Weaver asked, pointing at Adora’s champagne glass, as if she hadn’t heard her.

“Oh. Uh, one?”

With a snap of her fingers, Shadow Weaver filled Adora’s glass and continued on as if there had been no interruption, saying, “Yes, have you not heard?”

“Heard what? It’s just—Catra and I haven’t communicated in. . . in a while.”

Shadow Weaver tutted sympathetically. “Such a shame. Well, I should tell you, then, that Catra found herself quite the fortuitous match at the end of her time in school.”

“A match?” Adora asked, ignoring the sinking feeling in her chest for which she had no name. “So, she married someone, then?”

“Indeed,” Shadow Weaver confirmed with a nod. “Kyle.”

Adora had been taking a sip of champagne and just as soon choked on it. Through a cough, Adora said, “Kyle?”

“Kyle,” Shadow Weaver said with a dry chuckle. “Did you know he’s the bastard son of a king? Well, _was_. Poor sop had no other children and acknowledged him on his deathbed. The boy ascended the throne two weeks before his sixteenth birthday, and left the school in a gilded carriage shaking like a cur in the street. Catra followed him a month later and, _poof_ , they were married. I must say, the least likely King and Queen I would’ve ever thought I’d live to see.” Shadow Weaver moved aside her veil again and downed the remainder of her glass.

With the flapping of Shadow Weaver’s veil, a sour scent on her breath floated on the breeze to Adora. With that, and with the absolute deluge of information with which she was just presented, Adora was overcome with an abrupt wave of nausea.

“I—Excuse me, please. I have to—” But Adora didn’t finish the phrase before curtsying, turning, and fleeing, not really aware of where she was going before a few minutes had passed and Adora was leaning her back against her closed guest-room door, heaving with shallow breaths.

“Hello, Mara dearie,” Razz said casually, slapping a playing card down on the coffee table, much to the chagrin of one of the Dryl maids. “How was the party?”

“Can you—” Adora huffed, pointing at her bodice. “Can you help me? I don’t feel—I feel kind of—”

With a pause, and then a groan, Razz rose to her feet. “Turn,” she said simply. Adora complied and, within the minute, her stays fell to the floor and she gulped a lungful of air.

“Come,” Razz said then, leading Adora to the bed in the attached room and pushing her down onto it. She disappeared for a minute as Adora crawled to lay facedown on the comforter.

With a start, she felt something cold and wet slap onto the back of her neck. “There,” said Razz, keeping one hand on the cold compress and the other on Adora’s head, petting her. “Now tell grandma Razz what the trouble is.”

“Oh,” Adora sighed. She took a couple of deep, measured breaths, reveling in the new freedom around her ribcage. “I was just, like, really rude to someone who was like a mother to me.”

“Why is that?”

Adora turned to lay on her cheek, gazing up at Razz’s sympathetic, lined face. “I don’t know. She was drunk, I think? She told me that my. . . that an old friend got married. And I kind of. . . I don’t _know_. Freaked out? And ran away?”

Razz scoffed. “Are you not here for your friend’s wedding? You did not know?”

“No, not that friend,” Adora said. “A friend from my old school.”

“Ah,” Razz said, flipping the washcloth to press its cooler side to Adora. “Catra, is it?”

“Yeah. Catra.”

“You used to speak of her frequently. Not so much, these last few years.”

Adora sighed again. “Yeah.”

Razz peeled the cold compress from Adora’s neck and gave her hair one last stroke. “What’s past is past, Adora,” she said, and Adora picked up her head to gaze curiously at her. “You take a nap. Then you go to dinner and talk to her. Say hello, congratulations, you miss her. I know it will make you feel better. You understand?”

Adora grimaced. “The nap will, at least.”

With a wry chuckle, Razz gave Adora’s bottom a good pat. “Yes, naps often do. Nap, then. I’ll wake you to dress in a few hours.”

“Can’t I just wear this?” Adora asked wearily as she crawled up the length of the bed to curl herself around a pillow.

“Of course not. The princess is right, you know,” Razz responded with fondness as she struggled to her feet. “You never learn.”

\---

Adora couldn’t see Catra from where she sat at dinner. In all fairness, though, Adora couldn’t see _anyone_ from where she sat at dinner, as she had been seated so squarely in the corner of the room, hidden behind rows and rows of other guests, that she could barely see past her own plate.

“This is hysterical,” Mermista said, chewing a miniature shepherd’s pie off her fork. “Catra must’ve switched around the seating assignment once she saw you. There’s an empty chair at our table and everything.”

“Well, feel free to fill it,” Adora mumbled, scratching at her pinned hair.

Mermista shrugged, shifting slightly on the stool that she’d pulled up across Adora. “Nah, Glimmer was getting a little too weepy. She should’ve stopped drinking hours ago.” With a smirk, Mermista added, “And you should’ve taken a longer nap. You’re scowling more than me.”

Adora groaned. Then sighed. “Sorry. It’s been a weird day.”

Mermista hummed appreciatively. Sea Hawk, however, whose butt was perched on the few inches of space free on Mermista’s stool, exclaimed, “No need to be sorry, my dear Duchess! It is the evil Queen Catra who should be sorry, and we shall make her so!”

Despite herself, Adora snorted. “Still not off the ship-burning thing?”

“Never,” Mermista quipped, popping the remainder of the pie in her mouth.

“No, no, not ship-burning,” Sea Hawk continued. “Least of all because, well, she is a queen, and she certainly has the means to replace a ship. No, we shall make her sorry in another, more subtle, more permanent way.”

“Oh, god,” Adora whined. “How?”

“With _dance!_ ” Sea Hawk sang, throwing his arms wide and, in doing so, smacking a large, ursine guest seated behind him in the back of the head.

“He’s planning on challenging her to a dance-off,” Mermista explained flatly as Sea Hawk was lifted from his seat by the scruff of his neck.

Adora barked out a laugh. “You’re kidding.”

“Unfortunately, no,” Mermista said. “I swear I won’t let him.”

“I appreciate that,” Adora said, eyeing the scene of Sea Hawk being dragged down the aisle between tables.

“Unhand me, good sir! I’ll have you know that I am the Prince Consort of—ow, oh, not the ’stache, please!”

“Do you think you ought to. . . ?” Adora feebly pointed at Sea Hawk’s retreating form.

Mermista grunted, tipped the remainder of her wine down her throat, and got to her feet. “Go take our seats. Dinner’s almost over anyway.”

“Okay. Thanks for the company.”

Mermista, already turned around, waved a dismissive hand over her shoulder before she vanished in the crowd. Adora pushed back her own stool and, grabbing a miniature fruit tart for the road, left to wind through the room until she reached a table much closer to the front center. There sat the rest of her party and, standing beside them, Entrapta, who saw Adora and started waving furiously.

“Adora, hi!” Entrapta shouted, her pigtails carrying her around the table, shedding an impossible amount of tiny flowers with each step. “Oh, are you all right being so close to the center of the room? My friend Catra—you know Catra! She told me that you’d developed a deep, humiliating, irrational fear of being seated where so many people can see you. I had no idea! But I looked it up, it’s called scopophobia, and with some revolutionary therapeutic tactics it’s very treatable. Hordak has this _incredible_ library at his castle, and I filled a whole carriage with books for the trip, and lucky I did, too. I can lend you the book, it’s _enormous_ , and—Oh, sorry. Am I talking too much? Catra says I do that.”

Adora blinked at her. “Oh. No! No. You’re fine.”

Entrapta released a big breath of relief. “Phew. Good. Anyway. Are you okay?”

Adora quickly scanned the room and, at the head table, caught Catra’s profile sipping a glass of champagne. She wasn’t looking back at her, but Adora could see her smirk, even hidden behind the glass.

Adora opened her mouth to correct Entrapta’s impression, but then closed it. It was, after all, Entrapta’s wedding day. Drama could wait.

“No, yeah, I’m good,” Adora said instead. “Got over it. Uh, immersion therapy. Did wonders.”

“Oh, that’s great!” Entrapta said. “Let me know if it comes back, though. The next step is hypnosis and, failing that, electrotherapy. Very cutting-edge. I’ll lend you the book, anyway, just in case.”

“Sure. Thanks.” With a soft smile, Adora asked, “How are you, though? Are you. . . Are you happy with all this?”

“Yes!” Entrapta gushed, her hair grabbing Adora by the shoulder in her excitement. “I already told you about the library. But the research lab, the _resources_ —the Fright Zone can provide endless opportunity for me to—”

“Actually, Entrapta, I meant with Hordak,” Adora interrupted. “I mean, that’s great! Uh, yay! But what about Hordak? Is he, you know, like. . . nice? To you? I hope?”

At this, Entrapta blushed. “Oh, Hordak. Yes, he’s very nice to me.”

When Entrapta didn’t go on, Adora’s own blush flared. “Okay. Good. Yes. No more talk about that, then. Cool, cool, cool.”

“I’ll make sure you guys get to talk this week!” Entrapta offered. “I know you know him, too, but not well! You didn’t get much of a chance before you left the Fright Zone. You’ll love him!”

Adora grimaced and hoped she twisted it into a believable grin. “I’m sure I will. Sounds great!”

Entrapta’s hair fell from Adora’s shoulders and lifted her from the ground once more. “Great! I gotta get back, but I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Perfuma, who sat next to where Adora and Entrapta stood, looked up then. “What, you’re not going to your own after party?”

“Nah, Hordak goes to sleep early, it’s already _way_ past his bedtime. And I can’t just let him retire alone!”

Adora’s blush deepened as she actively tried to ignore the implications of Entrapta’s statement. Perfuma, meanwhile, obviously did the same, but said, “Okay! See you tomorrow!”

“Congratulations again!” Bow called from across the table.

“Thanks!” Entrapta said, beaming. “Bye!” And then she was gone, scuttling away on her hair and looking very much like a big, white, fluffy spider.

“Okay, gross,” Adora mumbled as she took the seat next to Perfuma.

Perfuma nodded. “Seconded.”

“Thirded,” Glimmer grumbled from under her arms, which were crossed on the table and utilized as a pillow for her head.

“What happened to you?” Adora asked snidely, reaching forward to steal a sip from Bow’s untouched champagne glass.

“The room started spinning,” Glimmer replied.

“Okay,” Adora said. With a nod at Frosta, who mimicked Glimmer’s position exactly, she asked, “And her?”

Perfuma chuckled. “Just being eleven.”

“Eleven and three quarters,” Frosta muttered sleepily.

“Okay,” Bow said, patting Glimmer’s elbow and pushing his chair back. “On that note, I think it’s time for bed.”

“But the party!” Glimmer wailed.

“Good thing there’ll be a hundred more before the week is done.” Bow gently pulled Glimmer to her feet, to which Glimmer did not put up much of a fight. “Frosta, can I take you back to your room, too?”

Perfuma rose as well. “Eh, she’s next to me, I’ll walk her.”

“I don’t need to be walked!” Frosta protested, although her head still lulled a bit forward as she stood.

“Sure you don’t,” Perfuma said with a sympathetic nod. She placed her hands on Frosta’s shoulders and steered her away from the table. “Let’s go. We’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Bow agreed, looping his hand around Glimmer’s waist to support her. “You coming, Adora?”

Adora shook her head. “I’m gonna do a quick lap to see where Mermista and Sea Hawk ended up. He got into a bit of a tiff. I’m sure it’ll be a long fanciful tale.”

“Too right,” Bow chuckled.

“Don’t wait up,” Adora said with a wave, walking away glass in hand.

She gave Bow and Glimmer a ten-minute head start. It was truthfully, partially, in order to make an effort to make sure Sea Hawk was okay. Adora didn’t find him or Mermista in the dining hall, nor in the adjoining ballroom where the after party was just getting started. She wasn’t worried. Mermista could certainly hold her own, and Sea Hawk couldn’t fare too poorly with her on top of the situation.

The other reason, though, was an excuse to give her two best friends a spot of privacy. In their one-month courtship, Glimmer and Bow were not often afforded moments without Adora present. And they were very thoughtful in not being too affectionate if she was around to witness it. Given Glimmer’s current state, however, and the fact that her guest chambers were right next door to Adora’s—well. Adora hoped the ten minutes would be sufficient to keep her away from something she probably didn’t want to see or hear.

_Better make it fifteen_ , she thought. With a suppressed shudder, she exchanged her empty glass for a fresh one with an attendant and began her slow amble out of the ballroom from one of its glass doors that led to the garden. One lap around the fountain and back should be more than enough time. Or, at least, she hoped.

The air was frigid, certainly, but no worse than Bright Moon at this time of year. Adora kept her elbows close to her sides in an effort to retain some warmth, but it certainly wasn’t worth the trip to her room for her cloak just to walk around outside for five minutes. Her heels clicked against the stone pathway, and she spared a passing thought to the long, sheer train that trailed behind her. Certainly being dragged along the ground wasn’t good for it? Then again, when had she ever seen the same formal gown for occasions like weddings and balls more than once, so why bother being gentle with any of them? Adora knew she had two trunks full of party dresses alone. It seemed wasteful, but that could just be her humble beginnings creeping up on her again.

“Hey, Adora.”

Adora froze in place. Slowly, she spun on her heel to appraise the figure she hadn’t noticed in passing, sitting on a bench tucked under a low-hanging tree. There the woman sat, leaning across the bench like it was a daybed, casually toying with a long, still-smoking pipe. Her tail twitched agitatedly, but it was the only thing that hinted at her unease, as her face was otherwise very relaxed. Confident. Perhaps a bit shrewd.

“Catra,” Adora returned, otherwise completely at a loss for words.

“It’s been a while.”

“Yeah,” Adora said, nodding rather dumbly. “It has.”

Catra took a drag from her pipe, exhaling fine smoke through her nose. “So, what’s shaking, Princess?”

Catra’s sardonic tone wasn’t lost on Adora, and she furrowed her brow for it. “‘What’s shaking?’ Really? That’s what you have to say?”

Catra laughed without an ounce of humor to it. “There’s plenty I could say. But it is a happy day, after all. I’ll keep it at pleasantries for now.”

“A happy day, indeed,” Adora replied. She could feel a knot of tension growing between her shoulders. “I hear I missed yours. I suppose belated congratulations are in order.”

Catra stilled an infinitesimal amount before smiling so wide all of her sharp teeth could be seen. “Thanks. It’s really served me quite well so far.”

“I’m sure it has,” Adora said stiffly. “Even if it comes at the expense of marrying Kyle.”

For a moment, Catra looked rather taken aback. “And what’s wrong with Kyle? I thought you liked Kyle.”

“I do. _You_ don’t. Or didn’t.”

With an eye roll and an extra drag of her pipe, Catra said, “What can I say? He grew on me.”

“Once you had a purpose for him, sure.” Adora, remembering the glass in her hand, took a sip of champagne before adding, “That’s a real nice game you play, there, Catra.”

“You sound jealous.”

Adora’s champagne hit the back of her throat, and she began violently coughing.

Catra smiled ruefully. “Poor Adora. Jumped ship too soon to become, what, some two-bit footstool? If you’d held out just a couple of years longer—”

“Y-you?” Adora spluttered because hacks. “You think I’m—I’m jealous of _you_?”

“Queen beats princess in my book,” Catra said, casually tipping her pipe upside down and tapping ashes onto the stone beneath her feet. “And princess beats duchess.”

Adora, catching her breath for a moment, felt it quickly leave her again. “That’s all it ever was for you, wasn’t it?” she said. “Beating me.”

Catra’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “No, of course not, Adora. Because you’re _special._ That’s what Shadow Weaver always said.”

“And Shadow Weaver said you never cared about anyone more than you cared about yourself,” Adora spat.

Catra’s eyes slanted impossibly more, and she stood to her full height. Even six feet away from Adora, and despite Catra’s lack of great stature, it was an imposing gesture. “You know, it all makes sense now. You were always the one holding me back. You wanted me to think I needed you. You wanted me to feel weak.” With a mocking cock of her head, Catra added, “Every hero needs a sidekick, right?”

“No,” Adora responded simply, shaking her head. “That’s not how it was.”

Catra chuckled a mirthless chuckle. As if Adora hadn’t said anything at all, Catra said, “The sad thing is that I spent so long hoping you’d come back, when really you leaving was the best thing that ever happened to me. And now—” Catra tapped a long finger nail on the diadem perched on her forehead. “I am so much stronger than anyone ever thought.”

Catra’s words hit Adora like a punch in the gut, so when Catra walked away without another word, Adora let her.

Adora had held out hope for so, _so_ long that her last night in the Fright Zone had been a misunderstanding. For years, she’d sent letter after letter to Catra, pleading for a response, for forgiveness for leaving. When all went unacknowledged, Adora had invented excuses. They were getting stolen by other kids, or intercepted by spies, as Bright Moon and the Fright Zone sat on opposite sides of the Horde Empire’s dividing line. Occasionally, the suspicion crossed Adora’s mind that Shadow Weaver had something to do with Catra not saying goodbye, or not responding. Shadow Weaver’s disdain for Catra was no secret.

Just then, though, as Adora stood shivering for reasons unrelated to the chill in the air, she felt she finally knew the whole story. Shadow Weaver really had been telling the truth all along.

After a few moments, Adora tipped the remainder of her champagne down her throat and, on her way back to her room, grabbed two more for the road.

\---

“I can’t believe that,” Bow expressed the next day as he and Adora stood together in the grounds’ stables. “You and Catra were like this.” He crossed his fingers. “You reminded me so much of Glimmer and me.”

“Ugh,” Adora groaned, pulling a little harder than necessary at a knot in Swift Wind’s mane with a comb. Patting him apologetically, Adora said, “Don’t compare Catra and me to Glimmer and you. For a million barf-worthy reasons that is not a good comparison.”

Bow shrugged noncommittally. “I just mean that you guys were really close for basically your whole lives. And she throws that away in one day? Doesn’t answer your letters?”

“Probably didn’t even look at them,” Adora muttered.

“And now,” Bow continued, “she’s saying that it was all your fault? That’s just not, like, a logical conclusion.”

“Logic has never been Catra’s strong suit,” Adora explained, shifting to brush Swift Wind’s forelock. “But, that’s basically it, yeah.”

Bow sighed. “I’m sorry, Adora. I thought that she was a better friend than that.”

“Yeah, well,” Adora said. With an extra scratch under Swift Wind’s chin, she stepped away, dropping the comb into a bucket at her feet.

“You know they have people to do that for you, right?”

Together, Adora and Bow twisted around to see Frosta walking towards them, accompanied by an unfamiliar girl about Frosta’s age.

“It’s not very princess-y to groom your own horse,” Frosta teased, arms crossed over her chest with sass beyond her years.

Adora smirked. “Good thing I’m not a princess, then.”

Frosta rolled her eyes and elbowed her companion. “This is Adora and Bow. They’re senior members of the Bright Moon court.”

“Oh, my gosh! Wow!” the girl said, her pink wings beating excitedly together. “I know all about you guys!”

“Oh,” Bow said awkwardly, peering at Adora out of the corner of his eye. “Do you?”

“Of course!” she gushed. “Bow, archery master and suitor of Princess Glimmer, daughter of their majesties the Queen Angella and the late King Micah. And Adora, daughter of She-Ra, legendary warrior and Duchess of Grayskull!” The girl’s fists vibrated where she held them in front of her chin. “I am so beyond honored to meet you both.”

“Wow,” Adora said, feeling heat rise past her cheeks to the tips of her ears. “That’s, like, kind of crazy.”

The girl’s face dropped at once. “Oh, I’m sorry! Am I being weird? My mom tells me I get overexcited and make things weird and, ugh, I’m so _embarrassed_ —”

“No, no!” Adora put her hands out and waved them in a way that she hoped was comforting. “It’s just that—It’s not like we’re big deals or anything.”

The girl, wide-eyed, replied, “Of _course_ you are! I hear people talk about you all the time. And trust me—” With a self-deprecating smile, she pointed at her moth-like ears. “—I hear a lot with these things.”

“Frosta,” Bow said, beaming. “Who’s your wonderful friend that I just want to carry around in my pocket?”

“This is Flutterina,” Frosta said, hooking her thumb at the girl, who curtsied. “We met this morning.”

Flutterina nodded emphatically. “I tripped and was about to spill juice all over myself when Princess Frosta froze it midair. It was _amazing_.”

Frosta grinned. “And then she complimented me for it all morning. I thought I’d keep her around.”

“Well, welcome!” Adora said, leaning back to pat Swift Wind on his shoulder. “We’ll introduce you to everyone, starting with Swiftie here.”

“Oh, Swift Wind!” Flutterina nodded. “I’ve heard about him, too! People were right.”

“Right about what?” Adora asked. She grabbed Swift Wind by his cheeks to pull him into a hug. “That he’s the handsomest horse in the world?”

“No, just that you two are really close.”

“Well, yeah,” Adora said as she released him, moving instead to drag a hand down his back. “He actually brought me to Bright Moon. He brings me everywhere. Most people in courts don’t like to care for their own horses, but he and I are different. For him, I don’t mind a little extra dirt on my skirt,” Adora added cheekily, throwing a finger gun in Flutterina’s direction.

“Ooh,” Flutterina said with a knowing nod. “ _That’s_ what they meant by ‘unnatural.’”

Adora froze. “Uh. What?”

Flutterina smiled innocently. “I overheard some people saying that your relationship to your horse was ‘unnatural.’ I get what they mean now! You’re just a better caretaker than most people of your station.” Flutterina looked between Adora and Bow, and her eyebrows knotted nervously. “Right? That’s what that means?”

“Yep!” Bow yelled suddenly, marching forward and covering spectacularly for Adora, who had become a human statue of burning humiliation. “Exactly! You heard Frosta here, good ol’ Adora doing her own chores. What a loon! Hey, on a totally different subject, why don’t you two go find the others. Then we can all have lunch together! Sound good?”

Frosta and Flutterina assented, chatting happily as they left the barn together. Bow, as soon as the girls turned the corner, whipped around to gape at Adora. At the same time, they both started screaming.

“ _What was_ that? _”_

_“Oh, my god!”_

_“Literally what is happening?”_

_“Oh. My._ God!”

Bow took a deep breath and plastered on what Adora knew was meant to be a reassuring smile but what was in reality a deep cringe. “It’s okay! It’s okay. She didn’t know what they meant. She just overheard someone making a mean joke. It’s not a big deal!”

“ _It’s a_ huge _deal, Bow!_ ” Adora shrieked, so shrill as to spook every horse in the stable. “Oh, my _god_ —”

“Adora, it’s—”

“ _Bow._ I just said the phrase that I didn’t mind extra _dirt._ On my _skirt._ ”

There was a beat, and then they just started screaming wordlessly all over again.

\---

“That is _hysterical_ ,” Mermista said later, popping a grape into her mouth from where she laid on her side in the absurdly dark, purplish grass.

“You’ve got a funny sense of humor,” Adora grumbled. “ _Not._ ”

Mermista snorted. “Come _on_. It’s not like anyone would actually believe that.”

“We should get ahead of it!” Sea Hawk announced, rising to his knees and making like he was about to stand. “I’ll make rounds now, informing everyone of this treachery and dissuading them of any—”

“Oh, my god, _no_ ,” Mermista scolded, pulling Sea Hawk back down by his lapel. “That is a terrible plan. You say _nothing_ , got it?”

“Got it, my dearest.”

Perfuma glanced down the hill and frowned at Frosta and Flutterina, who stood a few yards away chatting with their heads close together. “I wonder where she heard it from, though. That’s a pretty malicious rumor to start.”

Glimmer, who laid on her back with her arms over her eyes, yelled suddenly, “Hey, Frosta! Flutterina! C’mere!”

“My god, Glimmer,” Bow admonished, removing his hands from where he’d covered his ears.

“Cram it, babe,” Glimmer said as she sat up with no small amount of effort. “I just split my own skull open so I can solve this the easiest way possible.”

“A few less glasses of champagne yesterday probably could have—”

“Hey,” Glimmer interrupted, pinching Bow’s arm as Frosta and Flutterina arrived at their picnic blanket. Flutterina immediately dropped into a deep, shaky curtsy, to which Glimmer responded, “Cool, yeah. So who did you hear talking about Adora and her horse?”

“Adora and her horse being best friends!” Bow supplemented, deciding for some reason beyond Adora’s comprehension that jazz hands would make the statement any less weird.

“Yeah,” Glimmer said with barely concealed exasperation. “Do you see the people you heard that from? I think I need to talk to them about proper. . . pet care. Or something. Whatever. Can you point them out?”

“Oh, yes,” Flutterina said, twisting immediately to point up towards the Crypto Castle. “I just saw them, they’re up there on the balcony.”

The heads of everyone in the group followed Flutterina’s outstretched finger in unison. On the second-floor balcony stood a small gathering of people, including Rogelio and the bridesmaid and, closest to the railing—

“Catra,” Adora hissed.

\---

It went on for the remainder of the week. At first, Bow and Glimmer were pretty good at convincing her that she was imagining the increased number of glances in her direction. But by the time the whispering-and-snickering-behind-hands stage was well underway, even Adora’s best friends didn’t seem so confident in their own reassurances. When they heard a stranger whinny under their breath at Adora as they passed each other in the hall, Bow and Glimmer stopped trying to ignore the situation entirely.

“Look at it this way,” Bow said cajolingly from where he sat on the ground, his lute propped limply in his lap. “It’s no one on our side of the divide who’s taking part in this. That’s good!”

“That’s true!” Glimmer agreed. She sat on the couch right above Bow, and she retracted her hand from scratching at the nape of his neck to point it at Adora, who sat next to her. “It’s all people from the kingdoms of the Empire. You can totally tell, they’re the ones dressed all dark and gloomy. Like, we get it, your life is miserable. You don’t need to bury others in it, too.”

“Nice one, hon,” Bow said, holding his hand up for a high five, which Glimmer gave him.

Their group had ditched out early from the fourth ball of that week (or fifth, or maybe sixth? The days were really bleeding together at that point) to hang out in Glimmer’s room. A half-hour earlier, Frosta and Flutterina had succumbed to sleep, curled at the foot of Glimmer’s bed like kittens. Perfuma sat in the windowsill, close enough to participate but staring somewhat dreamily at the clouds that perhaps held thunder, or maybe even snow. Sea Hawk and Mermista lounged in the easy chairs across from the couch, their hands joined lazily between them. 

“But people on our side of things are definitely, like, hearing it,” Adora bemoaned. She pulled pin after pin out of her hair, placing them carefully on the small table beside her. “And that, like, super sucks.”

“I don’t know,” Mermista said, chewing her top lip in thought. “If that was true, you think Entrapta would’ve blabbed one of the times we saw her this week. You know that girl can’t keep any errant thought in her head from spilling out of her mouth. Total word vomit.”

“I disagree with the mean phrasing,” Perfuma chimed in from her perch, “but I agree with the sentiment. If a rumor like that was spreading past the Horde’s metaphorical boundary, Entrapta would be asking about it for research or something.”

“See!” Glimmer said, reaching to help Adora pull a particularly cemented pin from her scalp. “Listen, we go home in two days. Then we can just, you know, leave this all behind us.” Glimmer placed the pin in the pile on the table and then joined Adora in finger-combing her hair out. “Right?”

Adora frowned, dropping her hands into her lap to let Glimmer finish her combing. “No, I can’t just ‘leave this behind me!’ Catra is out there starting nasty rumors about me for, like, zero reason! And I can’t pretend like it’s just gonna stop when we go back home.”

“Then one-up her,” Mermista offered. “Start a rumor about her. Or, better yet, tell everyone an _actual_ secret about her. Show her that you’re not afraid of her just because she has a crown on her head.”

Perfuma sucked in a breath through her teeth. “I don’t know about that, Mermista. That seems pretty karmically unwise, don’t you think? An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, after all.”

“I’ve got idioms, too, flower girl,” Mermista scoffed. “Like how about fighting fire with fire?”

Adora worried her lip in silent contemplation. Sure, she knew secrets about Catra. But how many of those were actually relevant now? Like how Catra didn’t brush her hair once in all the years Adora knew her, or how Catra once got her claw stuck in Shadow Weaver’s office door’s lock and that they had to saw it off with a nail file? These were childhood anecdotes, little asinine embarrassments at worst that not only wouldn’t matter but also that Catra could return in kind. They both could enumerate an endless list against each other and, honestly, against anyone else with whom they attended school.

Adora gasped sharply, grabbing Glimmer by the knee so suddenly and so tightly that Glimmer exclaimed and dropped Adora’s hair like she’d been burned. “Jeez, Adora!” Glimmer scolded, and pressed her hand to her chest. “You just about scared me to death! What is wrong with you?”

“Kyle.”

“Kyle?” Bow asked.

Glimmer looked between them. “Who is Kyle?”

“Catra’s husband,” Adora said (keeping, she thought proudly, most of the bitterness she felt out of her tone).

“Okay. . .” Glimmer said slowly. “So, what about him?”

Here, Adora hesitated. Deflated. “It’s just—I remember rumors about him from school. None of them true, I don’t think. Except, I mean, the one about him being a king’s son was true. But, still.”

“I’m not following,” Sea Hawk said, squinting.

“Me, neither,” said Mermista, and she dropped her husband’s hand to lean forward, elbows on her knees.

Bow looked horribly disappointed. “If you’re thinking about the rumor I’m thinking about. . .” He shook his head. “Adora, that’s awful, you can’t do that.”

“I didn’t say I was gonna!” Adora replied hotly. She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back into the sofa. “I’m just saying I _could_ , and that would—”

“Ruin people’s lives,” Bow interrupted. “Or get them killed.”

A weighted silence rang in the air, and it was a few long seconds before Glimmer said, “Okay, is anybody gonna catch the rest of us up, or. . . ?”

Adora was too preoccupied by the cold shame crawling up her throat like stomach bile, so after a moment Bow answered, “There was a rumor at the institution that Kyle and another boy Rogelio had crushes on each other. I heard it basically my first night in the boys’ dormitory. I guess someone saw them holding hands once.”

“Yeah, Catra did,” Adora said. Catra’s name sat extra heavy on her tongue. “A couple of months before Bow got there. But she just thought it was funny,” she added, feeling a touch defensive. “The girls held hands all the time, her and me included. She didn’t mean to get them in trouble or anything. We were, like, eleven. She didn’t know.”

“There’s nothing wrong with boys falling in love with boys,” Perfuma said simply, like that settled the matter.

“Sure, all of us feel that way,” Bow said. “But the Empire feels very differently. You know that. My dads, remember?”

Perfuma blinked. “Oh! Of course. I’m sorry, Bow.”

Glimmer eyed Adora strangely. “I mean. . . if you really want to get back at Catra—”

“Glimmer!” Bow gasped, twisting to stare up at her accusingly.

“Fine!” Glimmer replied, throwing her hands in the air. With a deep breath, she continued, “I mean, of course we won’t. We would never _actually_. It’s just—” She shrugged. “I wish Catra remembered that you knew that before she started all this. Maybe she would’ve thought about it a little harder.”

Adora huffed. “Yeah, well.”

Sea Hawk grinned mischievously. “You know, Adora, my battle-of-the-dance idea isn’t entirely off the table.”

“Yes, it is,” Mermista said.

“Tomorrow at the closing tea party might be the perfect opportunity,” Sea Hawk pressed regardless. “I’m just saying.”

“You know what, Sea Hawk,” said Adora, fighting back a smile of her own. “If we don’t come up with a better idea before tea tomorrow afternoon, then sure. You can challenge her to a dance off.”

Sea Hawk released a _whoop_ that startled the two girls on the bed into wakefulness. Mermista, meanwhile, gaped at Adora. “That’s just going to embarrass _him!_ And, more importantly, _me._ What’s the good of that?”

Adora rubbed her tired eyes, no longer bothering to fight her smirk. “At the very least,” she said over a stifled yawn, “it’ll take the heat off of me for a bit.”

\---

The next afternoon, Adora entered the ballroom on Bow’s arm, Glimmer on his other one.

“I guess I’ll leave you here,” Bow said reluctantly, releasing both young women and straightening his waistcoat uncomfortably. “The _men_ ,” he said in a performatively gruff voice, “are over at the other end.”

“Have fun, babe,” Glimmer said with a quick peck on his cheek. “And good luck.”

“Thanks, hon. I’ll need it if I’m gonna restrain Sea Hawk like Mermista made me promise.” With a stiff bow, he was off, leaving Glimmer and Adora alone to weave through the other ladies and find chairs at the edge of the room.

“Okay,” Adora said, sitting stiffly and adjusting herself in such a way that she could almost ignore how her bodice sleeves cut into her shoulders. “As you were saying, mine is. . . series?”

“ _Cerise_ ,” Glimmer corrected with a roll of her eyes.

“I’m just gonna say red,” Adora muttered.

“Sure. And be laughed out of court.”

“Yeah, _that’s_ going to be what gets me laughed out of court.”

“You never know what the final straw will be.”

“I do, it’ll be me saying the color of _your_ dress out loud.”

“And what’s wrong with periwinkle?”

Adora, for the third time that afternoon, snorted. “Ha. _Periwinkle._ You kill me.”

“Hey,” said Mermista as she sidled up to them, Perfuma in tow.

Adora pointed at their dresses in turn. “Mint. Peach.”

“Sea foam,” Mermista corrected.

“And fuchsia,” Glimmer added, pointing to Perfuma, who nodded.

“Eh,” Adora said, scratching at her hair, and leaning out of the way just in time to avoid Glimmer’s slapping hands. “I just remember the food ones.”

“Even then,” Glimmer said exasperatedly as she withdrew her hands.

“You just miss your breeches,” Perfuma teased.

Adora sighed longingly. “Don’t remind me. They’re going on the second we’re in the carriage tomorrow.”

Glimmer guffawed. “Yeah, Bow’s gonna love that.”

Musicians in the corner plucked experimentally at their instruments, as guests all around hovered by tables laden with finger sandwiches and champagne flutes. The single teapot was largely untouched—which Adora found funny, given the name of the function. By the time the orchestra started actually playing, most of the gentlemen had moved to the veranda. Adora could see Bow and Sea Hawk from where she sat, both of them laughing jovially and sipping clear liquid from tiny glasses.

Adora adored her friends outside of Bright Moon, but she couldn’t help hoping this would be the last wedding for a while. One week of frivolity and ridiculous color names and bottomless alcohol was quite enough for some time.

“Look at that,” Mermista whispered suddenly.

Adora turned her attention to Mermista. “What?”

Mermista didn’t say anything, just gestured with her chin to one of the entrance doors. Adora followed her gaze to find Catra across the room, standing with her own group of darkly dressed women and staring straight back at her. 

“Jeez,” Perfuma hissed. “She looks mad.”

That was an understatement, in Adora’s opinion. Catra didn’t just look mad. Maybe it was a product of all their adolescent years together, but Adora could still read Catra quite well. And Catra’s face was a host of many things beyond mad. If Adora was forced to use only a single word to describe the expression on Catra’s face, she thought _dangerous_ might be the best fit.

Catra did not flinch away at Adora’s eye contact, so Adora held firm as well. Catra’s eyes were intense, calculating, her brow sloping low over them. Her mouth was curved into something of a deranged smile, which broke only when Catra’s friend, the bridesmaid, grasped her wrist between her claw and bent low to whisper something to her. Scowling, Catra ducked away and turned her face to say something obviously scathing.

“What happened to her?” Glimmer asked, effectively drawing Adora’s attention back to her.

“No idea,” Adora replied with a shake of her head.

Just then, the music swelled and, like clockwork, the women around the room began to arrange themselves in a circle.

Glimmer got to her feet with a groan and reached back to help Adora up as well. “Come on, then.”

“Do I have to?” Adora complained, but obediently took Glimmer’s hand and stood anyway.

“Just think of it this way,” Glimmer said. “Dance, dinner, sleep. Then home.”

“Dance, dinner, sleep, home,” Adora repeated. “Got it.”

Adora sandwiched herself between Glimmer and Perfuma. Once the other women in the room had settled into their positions, each joined palms with their partners. At the first count of the next bar of music, the circle began to rotate counterclockwise.

Planted straight across the circle was Catra, who had taken back up smirking evilly at Adora.

“God, she’s a psychopath,” Glimmer bemoaned as she and Adora turned to face each other. They placed their hands on each other’s waists and rotated together, as did every other pair in the circle. “I don’t trust that smile. She’s up to something.”

“Dance, dinner, sleep, home,” Adora chanted, and Glimmer cracked a smile.

They released each other and stepped forward to new partners. Adora’s was an older woman from Thaymor that she recognized vaguely by sight, but not by name.

“Enjoying the party, my lady?” she asked politely as she and Adora grasped wrists.

“Oh, for sure,” Adora lied easily, and they stepped away from each other to new partners once more. This new one was unfamiliar to Adora, but it was easy to tell by her charcoal-colored gown that she was from somewhere within the Empire.

“Hello,” Adora greeted automatically, forcing a smile.

“Mighty She-Ra,” she said with a leer of her own. On cue with the music, Adora lifted her arm for the stranger to duck under. When it was Adora’s turn to duck, the woman brought her elbow down too soon, thumping Adora sturdily on the crown of her head. “Apologies,” she said before Adora could open her mouth to say _ow_ , and then she was gone, replaced by Mermista.

“You okay, girl?” Mermista asked, grabbing Adora around the waist as Glimmer had done and spinning her around.

“Yeah,” Adora said as she patted her hair. “With this piled up the way it is, it’s more like a helmet than anything else.”

“Okay,” Mermista said, skepticism dripping in her tone. But she was pulled away all too soon, and another woman in a dark dress spun into her place.

Adora didn’t say anything, just nodded weakly. The woman’s goat-like ears wiggled in acknowledgement, but she likewise said nothing. The only sound Adora heard out of her was when she moved away, when she clucked a _clip clop, clip clop_ under her breath so quietly Adora could’ve been convinced she’d imagined it.

The circle collapsed into a cross shape, which, when looked at from above, spun like a windmill. At that point, Adora had linked elbows with, on her left, a woman she kind of recognized from Elberon and, on her right, Frosta.

“Hey,” Adora sighed in relief. “There you are. Did you just come in?”

“Yeah,” Frosta said, “I was supposed to meet Flutterina outside, but she never came. I just went without her when I heard the music start.”

“Oh, that’s weird.”

“Eh, it’s fine,” Frosta said. At that moment, both she and Adora’s other dance neighbor stepped away. “We’ll talk later!” Frosta shouted over her shoulder.

Adora’s next three partners were back-to-back residents of the Empire. The first trod on her toes, and the second straight-up, unapologetically whinnied in her face. The third was Entrapta’s bridesmaid.

“Listen,” the other woman jumped in without preamble. “I don’t condone any of this, but I still don’t like you.” She grabbed Adora by the waist and lifted her in the air, effortlessly, in perfect synchronization with the other pairs of dancers. “Oh, wait, duh, I haven’t introduced myself! I’m Scorpia. It’s nice to meet you, finally!”

“Is this all Catra?” Adora asked upon being placed back on her feet.

“As Catra’s best friend and closest confidant,” Scorpia said, placing her claw delicately on Adora’s hip and spinning her gracefully around the room, “I can neither confirm nor deny her involvement in any scheming, if such scheming actually exists. Which it doesn’t, necessarily.”

“I can’t believe this,” Adora snapped. “I didn’t even _do_ anything to her, I just _exist!_ ”

“‘Didn’t do anything?’” Scorpia scoffed. “You left her behind! She told me _everything_. You got a better offer and hightailed it without so much as a parting glance. Catra’s fragile, she’s sensitive, and you just tossed her aside like waste!”

“That’s not true!” Adora shouted, and then immediately dropped her voice as several heads turned to appraise her. “This isn’t worth talking to you about. Just tell Catra to back off, okay? Or else.”

“Tell her yourself,” Scorpia said dismissively, and spun Adora into her next partner, who grabbed her roughly by the hand as the pairs spread across the room.

“I don’t know about you,” Catra said in her smug, low voice, “but I am having a blast.”

Adora growled. “Whatever it is you’re planning, it won’t work.”

“You sure?” Catra asked, as she grabbed Adora by the hips and circled around her. “It already seems to be working pretty well to me.”

“Just what is your problem, Catra?” Adora asked. “Really, I want to know! You think that I abandoned you—”

“You did,” Catra interrupted. “But I don’t care about that anymore. I’ve grown up.”

“Yeah, sure. That’s why you started that awful rumor about me, isn’t it? And that’s why you’ve enlisted your cronies to harass me.”

“I didn’t start that rumor.”

“ _Right._ ”

“I didn’t.” With a wry smile, Catra added, “Not that I’ve done anything to keep it from spreading, to be fair. But I didn’t start it.”

Catra placed her arm around Adora’s shoulders, Adora placed her hand at Catra’s waist, and they continued waltzing.

Meanwhile, Catra said, “I’m not trying to _harass_ you either, Adora. I’m trying to warn you.”

“Warn me?” asked Adora, admittedly a bit taken aback. “Warn me about what?”

Catra leaned forward, her lips hovering so close to Adora’s ear that her breath tickled her skin. “If I ever,” Catra whispered, “so much as hear a _hiss_ about Kyle and Rogelio, from _anyone_ , I’m going to make you wish you were never born.”

With that, Catra dug her claws between Adora’s bare shoulder blades and swiped upward.

Adora gasped in pain and, at the same moment, twisted Catra by her wrist to pin it behind her back. 

“Come with me,” Adora said, pulling the immobilized Catra out of the group of dancers and through the ballroom.

Catra, to her credit, seemed largely unaffected by the turn of events. When Scorpia called out to her, Catra shot back, “I’m fine, Scorpia, leave us alone.” And Scorpia did, so Adora and Catra walked out into the hall alone.

There, Adora dropped Catra’s arm and stepped back. She reached behind herself to feel the skin exposed above her bodice, and her hand came away red. Without an extra thought, Adora wiped it on her skirt.

“Gross,” Catra said. That is, before she was pinned to the wall by Adora’s forearm over her sternum.

“What are you talking about?” Adora demanded, her steely eyes staring unflinchingly into Catra’s. “What about Kyle and Rogelio?”

Catra’s smirk fell. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. I know you blabbed all about it to your puffy princess friends, you and Arrow Boy.”

“What?” Adora blinked. When she noticed Catra’s breathing stutter a bit on an inhale, she lifted the pressure on Catra’s chest. “I mean—None of them would say anything to anyone about that. How—?”

“Am I interrupting something?”

Adora glanced down the hallway to see Flutterina, standing a bit pigeon-toed and looking innocently curious.

“Flutterina!” Adora gasped. Then, realizing that her arm was still lain against Catra’s chest, and that Catra’s low-cut stays offered no barrier between Adora’s skin and Catra’s thin fur, Adora dropped her arm in a panic and laughed awkwardly. “No, Flutterina, hi! Good to see you. Uh—uh—Frosta! She was looking for you! She’s right inside.” Adora gestured to the ballroom. “Don’t mind us, I’ll see you in there in a second.”

Catra, strangely, laughed. “Speak of the devil,” she said, making no effort—Adora realized—to step away from where she’d just been pinned.

“Oh,” Flutterina said, her girlish expression falling fluidly away into a self-satisfied grin that could rival any of Catra’s. “Is it time for my big reveal, then?” she asked in a voice less feminine than any in which Adora had ever heard her speak.

“I guess so,” Catra replied casually.

“Wait,” Adora said, shaking her head like it might wake her from a very strange dream. “How do you know each other? What does this—” Like a cog had become unjammed in her brain, Adora realized something. “Flutterina. . . Did you—Did you overhear us talking last night?”

“Duh,” Flutterina responded, placing her hand on her cocked hip.

“I thought you were asleep. Wait, but—” Adora looked from Flutterina to Catra to Flutterina again. “—why did you tell Catra about what we were talking about? After she spent all week spreading lies about me?”

“Oh, honey,” Flutterina chuckled. “That wasn’t Catra.”

At that moment, Flutterina blinked—but not normally, not the way she had before. Rather, her eyelids slid sideways, like someone had pulled a window shut and thrown it back open.

Adora jumped back with a gasp as Flutterina’s form was enveloped by a black, pulsing energy. When the energy evaporated, as quickly as it had come, someone completely different was left behind it.

“Double Trouble,” they said, spinning on their toe and dropping into a sweeping bow. “At your service.”

“A shapeshifter,” Adora said. “You’re a shapeshifter!” She turned to Catra and shouted, “Are you behind this? What’ve you done with the real Flutterina?”

“Darling!” Double Trouble called, tutting sympathetically. “There is no Flutterina! She’s simply one of my personages, created from scratch.” They polished their nails on their dark bodice (which, Adora just noticed, topped a pair of men’s breeches). “I consider it a great compliment that you became so invested in her so quickly, though. Even though it was her that started that funny little rumor about you. Or—” A wicked grin. “—rather, me.”

“You?” Adora spluttered. “You started that? Wh—Why?”

“Chaos, love,” Double Trouble replied. “No other reason than that. I was bored! I saw an opportunity. I took it. Which reminds me. . .” Double Trouble stepped to Catra, holding their hand aloft. “Based on what I’ve heard about your husband, I think I smell another opportunity. Unless?”

Catra’s face, previously amused, fell. “Talk to Rogelio,” she replied curtly. “He’s Lord Chamberlain. He’ll give you what you need.”

Double Trouble’s hand closed on nothing, but their grin widened further still. “Delicious. I’ll visit your chambers this evening. Ta, darling.” And they glided away through the doors of the ballroom, leaving Adora and Catra alone once more.

Speechless, Adora looked to Catra.

Catra scowled at her. “What, do I need to pay you off, too?”

“No,” Adora answered automatically. “Of course not.”

Catra let out a huff. “Yeah, right. I’m sure my being deposed wouldn’t appeal to you at all, would it?”

Adora shook her head. “No, it wouldn’t.”

Catra stared down the hallway frustratedly, as if something down there held whatever answer she was seeking from Adora. Adora, for no discernible reason, examined Catra’s hair in the meantime. Sleek and styled, as she’d noticed at the wedding, but held with so many pins to keep it that way that Catra’s skull must’ve been screaming. Really, it was easily thrice the amount Adora ever had in her own hair.

“Is it true, though?” Adora asked, so low that no normal person could hear her. But Catra could, Catra always could. “Are they now, like—”

Catra’s head whipped around to glare at her. “No,” she answered (maybe a touch too quickly to be wholly convincing, but Adora elected to let it go).

“Okay,” Adora said. “I won’t say anything either way. You can trust me.”

Catra laughed humorlessly. “Oh, can I?” she asked.

Adora’s frustration came quickly to its boiling point again. “Okay, that’s enough, Catra. You hate me now, I get it. But can we cut the crap on the I-abandoned-you shtick? I think we both know that’s not fair.”

“Fair? How is that not fair?” Catra spat, stepping toe to toe with Adora, tailing whipping rapidly back and forth. “You left to go play royal family with Arrow Boy and Sparkles, without even saying goodbye. That’s it.”

“ _I_ didn’t say goodbye? Catra, you didn’t even come back to our room that night. I waited up to talk to you, I—”

“Oh, my god, Adora, _stop._ I was in my bunk all night, you _never_ —”

“Yes, I did! What are you talking about?”

“What are _you_ talking about?”

They stared at each other for a long minute. Adora couldn’t see any hint of tease in Catra’s eyes, couldn’t see anything beyond the same abject confusion that Catra probably saw in hers.

“Okay,” Catra said, leaning back against the wall and steepling her fingers in front of her forehead. “Retrace your steps from that night. We were both outside of Shadow Weaver’s office, and then—?”

_We never saw each other again_ , Adora finished in her own head.

“I went to the Queen’s chambers,” Adora supplemented instead. “Then Shadow Weaver’s office again. Then our dorm, back to Shadow Weaver’s office, and then I left.” She cocked her head to the side. “What about you?”

“Our dorm,” Catra said, eyes narrowing. “Then Shadow Weaver’s office, then back to our dorm. I stayed there until the day after you left.”

Adora’s heart ached at that. She knew, however, that Catra would flee if she made any such mention of how much Catra’s isolation affected her. So, instead, she said, “That’s so weird. Did I just—I don’t know, not look in your bunk hard enough?”

Catra rolled her eyes so hard Adora was surprised they didn’t roll out of her head entirely. “You’re such an idiot. We both saw Shadow Weaver—” She said the name with no small amount of venom. “—several times that night. You don’t suspect that she might’ve had something to do with this?”

“No,” Adora said without really thinking. “She wouldn’t do that to me.”

Catra’s expression darkened. “Yeah, but she’d do that to _me_. Especially if she thought there was any chance I would—you know. ‘Ruin your future,’” she punctuated with finger air quotes.

“She wouldn’t,” Adora said, growing firm. “She knew how much I—Well, she knew that would hurt me! She wouldn’t actually do anything to keep us apart.”

“Uh, _duh!_ ” Catra said, gesticulating wildly around herself. “Of _course_ she would!”

“Catra, I don’t think—”

“Oh, my _god_ ,” Catra yelled, “ _listen_ to yourself! This was always your problem! You would always listen to Shadow Weaver over me, pick her over me.”

“It’s not like that! It’s just—”

“Whatever, Adora,” Catra said, throwing her hands up before crossing them in front of her midriff. She bumped into Adora’s shoulder with her own, knocking Adora to the side and causing a stab of pain to spike between her shoulder blades. Adora hissed and squeezed her eyes shut, and only just caught Catra adding, “Go ask her yourself, if you won’t believe me. Just leave me alone.”

Catra disappeared behind the ballroom doors in the time it took Adora’s pain to ebb away and for her to reopen her eyes. For the second time in a week, however, Adora let her go. Instead, she headed in the opposite direction, towards the wings of Crypto Castle that she knew held every guest still in attendance.

\---

It took Adora knocking on eighteen doors for Shadow Weaver to appear behind one of them.

“Adora,” she greeted, like she had expected to see her. “What a lovely surprise. Won’t you please come—”

“My letters,” Adora said without introduction.

“Your letters?” Shadow Weaver asked, eyes squinting. “What about them?”

“My letters to Catra,” Adora clarified. “What happened to them?”

At that, Shadow Weaver’s eyes widened nearly imperceptibly.

_Nailed it_ , Adora thought.

“Why, I gave them to her,” Shadow Weaver answered, taking just a moment too long to do so. “What she did with them after, I have—”

“You’re lying,” Adora interrupted, and Shadow Weaver stopped speaking without objection. “Shadow Weaver, tell me the truth. What did you do with my letters to Catra.”

Shadow Weaver tilted her head to one side, surveying Adora shrewdly. After an extra beat, she answered, “Fine. I burned them.”

Adora’s heart sank. “ _Why_? Why would you _do_ that? I’d already gone to Bright Moon.”

“If I’d said it once, Adora, I’ve said it a hundred times. Catra would have held you back. You never would have stayed at Bright Moon if you knew she was still at the school, missing you, selfishly wanting you to come back. And I can only imagine what would’ve happened if I’d let her go with you like the Queen requested.”

“The Queen did—” Adora stuttered. “Angella asked if she could bring Catra, too? Wh—How did she—?”

“When she told me it was her intention to bring you to Bright Moon,” Shadow Weaver explained with a great sigh, “she inquired as to whether it would unduly disrupt your life. Whether it would be too difficult for you to leave your friends there. I told her about Catra—foolishly, on my part, I should’ve never mentioned her. I even told the Queen what a hellion she was, how she wasn't worth the trouble. Didn’t dissuade her Highness in the slightest. In the end, I told her that Catra was a ward of the Empire and, as such, could not be taken from it. Now, Adora,” Shadow weaver said, stepping back and holding the door open. “Will you please come inside so we can talk about this properly? It’s very rude to have a private conversation in a public—Where are you going? Adora!”

Adora had turned without another word and started rushing back down the hallway from whence she’d come. She was ten meters away when she felt icy hands on her back.

“Adora,” said Shadow Weaver, in that voice that Adora had previously considered maternal. “Your back! Did she do this to you? Please, allow me to—”

“Don’t touch me!” Adora shouted, throwing Shadow Weaver off of her with her elbow. Shadow Weaver looked shell shocked, gaping at Adora with wide eyes. Adora didn’t wait for her to say anything more, however, and just turned back to her path and followed it through the castle’s twists and turns, all the way back to her own room, in furious, righteous silence.

\---

Dinner was skipped. Sleep had eventually come, late in the night, long after the occasional sounds of neighboring party-goers drifted down the halls to beds of their own. Finally, it was time to go home—and not a moment too soon, in Adora’s humble opinion, as she shepherded Madame Razz through a hurried breakfast, helped the Dryl maids finish packing her trunks (much to their astonishment), and convinced Glimmer to help jump everyone and everything from upstairs directly in front of the Bright Moon carriages, though it took a couple of trips to get it all done.

“Okay, Adora, we did it,” Glimmer said, delicately patting her brow with a handkerchief. “Despite the fact that it’s the crack of dawn—”

“It’s, like, eight o’clock,” Adora said, looking to the sun’s position in the sky (which was well above the horizon then).

Glimmer plugged on, unaffected. “—and despite the fact that this castle is littered with footmen and other staff that would’ve happily carried the luggage out in a perfectly suitable, speedy fashion, I have indulged your bout of temporary insanity for the sole reason that I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Adora replied with a warm smile.

But Glimmer held up her hand. “Can it. You owe me big time.”

“I know.” Adora clapped her hands together. “We can figure out my penance in the carriage! Let’s go home!”

“Hold on!” Bow said, slamming the carriage door closed just as soon as Adora had pulled it open. “We can’t leave before we say goodbye to everyone.”

“What?” Adora whined. “Why?”

“Because it’s polite?”

Adora groaned at the clouds above them.

Glimmer heaved a great sigh. “Adora, you’re being ridiculous. But, if it makes it any easier on you, we can divide and conquer. One of us will find Entrapta and Hordak, and the other two will find the girls and Sea Hawk, deal?”

Adora groaned again.

“I’ll take the girls and Sea Hawk, and bring grumpy pants here with me. You take Entrapta.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Glimmer said as she grabbed her friends’ hands and teleported them one last time into the castle’s entrance hall.

“We’ll meet you back here in, like, twenty?”

“Twenty!” Adora cried.

Glimmer, ignoring her, replied, “Are you kidding me? I’m done jumping today. I’ll meet you guys in the carriage. And let’s call it fifteen before Adora has a conniption.”

Bow laughed, gave Glimmer’s hand a kiss before dropping it, and said, “Deal.”

The two split apart, and with heavy feet Adora began to follow Bow until, suddenly, they stopped almost on their own accord.

“I’ve got something I have to do,” she told Bow and Glimmer, both of whom looked back in confusion. “Carriage in twenty?”

Glimmer opened her mouth, looking very much like she wanted to give Adora a hard time. But Bow intercepted and, with a voice that was maybe a bit too understanding, said, “Carriage in twenty.”

At that, Adora darted away without another word—not towards the guest suites or the intricate staircase that led to resident chambers, but to the ballroom. It was empty, then, as most guests were likewise preparing for their journeys home, and Adora easily swept through it, past the glass doors, and out onto the veranda. She would’ve run, if not for her stupid, pinchy shoes, but she quickly found with a sigh of relief that she didn’t have to. At the end of the garden where the fountain bubbled, Catra and Kyle sat at the bench under the low-hanging tree, perfectly visible in the morning light.

Adora knew that Catra had seen her when she was halfway across the path, as the uncharacteristically relaxed expression she’d been wearing while talking to Kyle tightened at once. Kyle noticed this and followed Catra’s line of sight, seeing Adora when she was only a few feet away.

“Adora!” he greeted, launching to his feet and pulling Adora into an embrace.

“Oh!” Adora said, quite surprised. She ignored the sharp stab of pain that came from his hands patting her back, briefly wincing through it until she regained the composure to pat his back in return. “Hi, Kyle,” she said, pushing away to hold him at arm’s length. “How’ve you been?”

“Good, good,” he chuckled. “And you?”

“Good, too,” Adora said. She casted a glance behind Kyle to examine Catra, who was pouting and staring off into the distance, smoking her pipe with so many frequent puffs that she looked like a chimney. “Sorry, is there—Can I speak to Catra? Alone? Just for a minute.”

Kyle pulled his hands from Adora’s shoulders and smiled at Catra like they were sharing a private joke. Catra didn’t so much as look back at him (very purposefully, it was clear).

“Sure,” Kyle said kindly. Then he turned to Catra and, bowing to her eye level, muttered, “Remember what we talked about,” before walking away with a parting, friendly grin to Adora. “See you.”

“Yeah,” Adora said with a nod, watching him retreat until she and Catra were alone in the plaza. Turning back to gesture to the bench, she asked, “Can I sit?”

Catra shrugged, then shifted to settle herself at the extreme edge of the seat. With an eye roll, Adora sat beside her—not close enough to touch, but close enough for her to hear Catra’s huff of annoyance.

They sat in uncomfortable silence for about thirty seconds before Adora told her, “I sent you letters after I left.”

Catra’s ears perked instantly at that. She finished a long drag of her pipe, gave kind of a shaky exhale, and said, “Did you?”

“I did. Literally hundreds.” Before Catra could ask the natural next question, Adora said, “I talked to Shadow Weaver last night. She burned them, all of them. She told me.”

Catra released a low, humorless laugh. “Well. Is this where I get to tell you I told you so?”

“You can if you want.”

Catra didn't, she just took another drag of her pipe.

“I’m sorry,” Adora said, “for thinking the worst of you. That night I left, Shadow Weaver—well, she lied to me. And I believed her.”

“What’d she say about me?” Catra asked, eyes narrowing at whatever point upon which she’d fixed them.

“It doesn’t matter.” Adora stared hard at Catra’s face. Her chin had grown kind of pointy, her face having lost all of her baby fat in the years since they’d last seen each other. From so close up, Adora could better see that Catra’s skin was caked in makeup, and Adora couldn’t help wondering if Catra still had all of her freckles under it.

Catra frowned and met Adora’s eye for the first time since she’d sat down. She’d opened her mouth to say something, but stopped when she saw Adora examining her. “What? What’re you looking at?”

An odd smile crawled across Adora’s face. “Nothing.”

“Well, stop it. Stop being so weird.”

Adora leaned back onto her hands. “We’re leaving now. And I wanted to make sure I said goodbye this time.”

Catra’s looked taken aback, her eyes going comically wide before she squinted them again, and scoffed, “What do I care?”

Adora, for some reason completely unknown to her, laughed.

“Why are you laughing? What is the matter with you?”

When she regained a bit of her composure, Adora bumped her shoulder against Catra’s. “I missed you, you know,” Adora sighed.

This time, Catra blushed so hard that it could be seen beneath her makeup. “Seriously!” she yelped, rocketing to her feet and staring down at Adora with her hands on her hips. “What is wrong with you?”

Adora dissolved into laughter all over again, and Catra, clearly exasperated, threw her hands to the air.

“Whatever, you lunatic. I’m going back inside. Have a safe trip, I guess.”

“Have a safe trip?” Adora wheezed, placing her hand to her chest.

“Or don’t!” Catra corrected. “Roll into a ditch for all I care!”

“Oh, my god,” Adora said, standing with her arms crossed. “I can’t believe you like me. That’s so embarrassing for you.”

“Shut up,” Catra said, now beginning to chuckle herself, genuinely. The sound hit Adora like a brick wall. “This is not because I like you.”

Adora’s giggles died down, and she smiled a special smile that she felt she’d been saving for Catra for years. Catra halfheartedly returned it.

“Hey,” Catra said, poking Adora in the sternum with the mouthpiece of her pipe. “I remember that thing. I can’t believe you still have that.”

Adora looked down, even knowing very well what she’d see: her golden, wing-shaped pin, keeping her travelling cloak clasped around her. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

_I almost left it for you,_ she wanted to say, but decided against it. She felt that she and Catra had made pretty good progress already. No need to rush it.

“You’re such an idiot,” Catra said, turning to walk back up to the veranda. “All the coin in the world and you’re still using some tarnished, old scrap metal. At least get a diamond put in it, or something.”

“Hey,” Adora said before Catra could make it too far. “What did you and Kyle talk about? What did he mean?”

Catra barely bothered to look over her shoulder, still walking. “What did Shadow Weaver say about me?”

Adora cocked her head to the side. “I’m not going to tell you.”

Catra’s head faced forward again, and she waved a dismissive hand. “Then that makes two of us.”

Adora stayed rooted to the spot, watching Catra go, watching the train of her gown ripple over every crack in the stone beneath her feet. When Catra stepped onto the veranda, she covertly looked back at Adora, who lifted her hand and called, “See you, Catra.”

Catra rolled her eyes, but smiled. And then she had gone, disappeared behind the glass doors that, in the morning sun, concealed everything inside from view with a reflection of the garden, the fountain, and Adora standing there, her hand still raised stupidly in the air.

\---

Adora lifted herself into the carriage shortly after that, where Bow and Madame Razz awaited her.

“Here,” Razz said, shoving a tunic and a pair of breeches into Adora’s hands. “No more complaining the whole trip, now.”

“Yes!” Adora cried, and she sat down at once to shrug off her travelling cloak and kick off her clogs. “Razz, could you get my bodice?”

Bow had covered his eyes the second Adora made contact with her clothes. From under his hands, he sighed, “Let me know when you’re done. Then I can start grilling you about where you went.”

“At least wait for Glimmer,” Adora responded, leaning forward to, first, give Razz better access to the buttons down her back and, second, to begin pulling her pants up under her skirt. “You know how she hates to miss a second of others’ drama.”

“Ah, Mara dearie,” Razz moaned, gingerly tracing Adora’s spine with her fingertips. “Blood is coming through your bandages! It’s stained your shift. And I just washed that, too.”

“Take it all off, then, we brought extra bandages for a reason.”

The door swung open then, revealing Glimmer.

“Hurry,” Adora said, pressing her bodice into her chest and waving Glimmer in. “The faster you close the door, the faster I can drop this thing.

Wordlessly, Glimmer did as she was told, the door shutting behind her with a click.

A minute later, Bow—eyes still covered—asked, “Uh, hon? Are you all right? You seem. . . awful quiet.”

Adora looked up properly for the first time and noticed that Glimmer was not only unnaturally quiet. She looked absolutely haunted.

“Glimmer,” Adora said, reaching forward to grab Glimmer’s hands. “What happened?”

“Oh, god. What, what’s wrong?” Bow said, worry coloring his voice. “Adora, please, can you put on a shirt so I can look at my girlfriend and see what’s wrong?”

“Not until she’s fixed up!” Razz scolded, wrapping her arms around Adora’s middle to pass a bandage between her hands.

“Glimmer,” Adora said again.

Glimmer blinked once, twice, and met Adora’s gaze. Somewhere between terrified and happy beyond measure, she said, “My dad. I think—I think my dad’s alive.”

Bow dropped his hands, took one look at Glimmer, another at Adora, and recovered his face. “Ah, jeez.”

The carriage lurched forward, and they were on their way home.

**Author's Note:**

> Story will update as often as my little pea brain permits, but you can get a better idea of what to expect on my tumblr. Find me at mkandas.tumblr.com for updates, asks, and whatever else you might want.


End file.
